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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25696246">how to stay</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/answersinahauntedclub/pseuds/answersinahauntedclub'>answersinahauntedclub</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(in coming chapters at least), (of a sort at least), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bottom Anakin Skywalker, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Human Disaster Obi-Wan Kenobi, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Top Obi-Wan Kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:48:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>50,983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25696246</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/answersinahauntedclub/pseuds/answersinahauntedclub</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A literature professor, Anakin thought, his head spinning. What were the chances that the literature professor he had fucked last night happened to be the only literature professor teaching the only humanities class Anakin was supposed to take for the year?</p><p>[or: Anakin Skywalker is a grad student waiting to just get the rest of the school year over with after a failed engagement. And then he realizes that the person he had a one-night stand with last night just happened to be the person who's supposed to teach his last required class. Of course.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>214</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>717</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin woke up to the smell of something that was decidedly not coffee. He smelled something herbal instead—a little grassy, very earthy, very not coffee. Which was odd, considering that almost seventy percent of his morning-afters usually began with coffee. (The other thirty percent didn’t have coffee at all. The other thirty percent was mostly just Anakin waking up to finding the person from last night already changing and slipping out of the apartment. A quick “that was fun”, followed by a semi-sheepish smile or smirk. Those were always the worst, but Anakin took it all in a stride.)</p><p>Anakin rolled over on the bed. He could still feel the warmth of the person who had been sleeping next to him last night. Still smell that warm woodsy, just slightly musty scent that had Anakin speculating that his temporary partner could have either spent a lot of time in a bookstore or in a library. Some place with lots of books. They had made brief conversation on that—books. Stephen King and Jane Austen and Chinua Achebe, and then Anakin remembered slipping away a pair of wire glasses, feeling the bristles of a beard against his neck, and then falling back against the bed. Tangling fingers in silky locks of hair, wet-mouthed kisses at his chest, his throat. Heated whispers, a hand clamped over Anakin’s mouth, and then both of them drifting off.</p><p>Anakin opened his eyes now. The shades were already open, letting in the grey morning light. Anakin found his clothes in a heap right under the window—right where he had blindly tossed them.</p><p>Groaning through the soreness in his limbs, Anakin managed to push himself off the bed. He reached for his pants. It took him three times to get his legs in through the right pant leg, and then he wore his shirt inside-out. He was turning it back the right way when he heard a knock on the door.</p><p>Which was funny, Anakin thought, because it wasn’t like this was <em>his </em>bedroom.</p><p>Still, Anakin said, “Come in!”</p><p>The door opened, revealing Bookish One Night Stand with two mugs. (Anakin hadn’t bothered asking his name. And he had noticed that Bookish hadn’t bothered asking for Anakin’s name either. Which suited Anakin just fine. No names, anonymous. Forgettable. That was fine.)</p><p>“I thought I heard you moving around,” Bookish said now, passing Anakin a mug.</p><p>“Thanks,” Anakin said. He looked down. Green tea. Definitley not coffee. He smirked a little, lifting his eyes over the mug. “Don’t drink coffee?”</p><p>“Would you like coffee?”</p><p>“Nah, this is fine,” Anakin said. “Just teasing.” He leaned back against the wall, sneaking another glance at Bookish again. He had gotten dressed, wearing a light blue button-up, a pair of smart grey trousers. The whole attire made Anakin notice that Bookish’s eyes were actually a mixture of grey and blue, rather than the sheer blue Anakin had thought they were when they were in the bar last night.</p><p>“Work today?” Anakin asked.</p><p>“Ah, yes,” Bookish replied, blinking down at himself as though he had only just now noticed. “A class later.”</p><p>“So you teach,” Anakin said, nodding to the books scattered around the room. “Literature?”</p><p>“What gave it away?” Bookish asked dryly, but he was smiling too. He took a sip from his mug. “And do you…”</p><p>“Part-time right now,” Anakin replied. He glanced down at his watch, and even though he didn’t technically have to be anywhere for another hour, he knew how these kinds of things went. “Which, speaking of, I’m running a little late.” He pushed himself off the wall, handed Bookish back the mug. “Thanks for the night.”</p><p>“You’re welcome,” Bookish replied, and to his credit, he gave Anakin an equally amused smile.</p><p>Anakin smirked again. “Who knows,” he said, swiping his shoes from the door, “maybe I’ll run into you again. I usually hang around that bar anyways.” He looked over his shoulder as he shoved on his shoes. The morning light had gathered behind Bookish, lighting him up in a white-grey glow that Anakin decided suited him. And for a moment, Anakin figured that he wouldn’t have minded if he really <em>did </em>see Bookish again. He seemed like a genuinely good guy, the kind that Anakin could easily see making tea for everyone, not just for one-night stands.</p><p>But then again—</p><p>Well.</p><p>“See you ‘round,” Anakin said, and giving Bookish a two-fingered salute, he slipped out of the apartment.</p><p>--</p><p>“So, how did last night go?” Ahsoka asked without looking up from her laptop. She was wearing a pair of sweatpants, a sleepshirt, but she was typing feverishly as though her life depended on whatever she was working on. Knowing Ahsoka, she might as well have. Now a senior in college, Anakin knew that his friend was probably cracking down on everything she had left. He was glad he didn’t have to be a part of that life anymore.</p><p>Anakin closed the door behind himself. “Swell,” he replied, kicking off his shoes. He slipped over to the couch, causing Ahsoka to harrumph a little at the interruption. Still, Ahsoka pushed herself to the other edge of the couch so Anakin could settle himself fully, just as Anakin knew she would. “What’re you working on?”</p><p>“Anniversary present for Trace,” Ahsoka replied, still not looking up from her screen. Anakin saw lines of code, complicated scrawls of numbers and semicolons and letters that he knew wouldn’t make sense to anyone else except for Ahsoka and himself. “It’s supposed to be this quest game thing. She flies a little coded ship to a planet, and on the planet, she’s going to find a message telling her to meet me at the Charles. You know, near the BU esplanade?”</p><p>“<em>And</em>?” Anakin asked, reaching over Ahsoka to swipe the bag of discarded bag of chips on the coffee table. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the wastebasket across the room. Ahsoka was usually neat, usually tidy—except when she was working on an assignment or, in this case, a Very Important Present for Her Girlfriend of an Official Year. “What’re you two going to do at the Charles?”</p><p>“Picnic,” Ahsoka replied, sticking her tongue between her teeth. She brought her face closer to the screen, and Anakin tugged her back. “Hey—”</p><p>“Not that close, Snips,” Anakin said. “I don’t think your girlfriend will appreciate you getting your eyes burned out for her.”</p><p>“It’ll be a romantic gesture,” Ahsoka replied, looking back at her screen. She typed a few more lines of code, and, after a beat, she asked, “So, last night? Was he nice? He seemed nice.” Right—because Ahsoka had been at the bar with Anakin. Well, Ahsoka and Trace. They had been hanging out on the other end, mostly just signaling a thumbs-up of support every few minutes.</p><p>“He was,” Anakin replied, stretching back against the couch. “Literature professor, I think. He had all of these random books around the bedroom.”</p><p>“That’s funny,” Ahsoka said, still typing. “Did you tell him you were going to take a lit class this semester? You guys could have really struck it off that way.”</p><p>“Nah,” Anakin replied. “No reason to. Besides,” he added, flashing Ahsoka a smile, “I think we managed to strike it off just fine doing other things.”</p><p>“Spare the details,” Ahsoka said, chucking Anakin a couch pillow. Laughing, Anakin ducked the pillow pushed himself off the couch. He walked towards the kitchen, ducking the other pillow Ahsoka had managed to toss at him.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Anakin added, getting out a bowl, cereal out of the cupboard. “He was a perfect gentleman. He even made tea. No mumbled apologies or shady eye-contact or anything. And he had an accent. British, maybe?” Dumping more cereal than he was probably hungry for, he walked back into the living room and re-settled himself on the couch. Ahsoka wordlessly held out her palm, and Anakin dumped out two handfuls of Coco Puffs.</p><p>“Thanks,” Ahsoka said, popping the cereal into her mouth. Still chewing around the cereal, she added, “British accent and gentlemanl-y. Do you think you’ll see him again?”</p><p>“Definitley not,” Anakin replied cheerfully.</p><p>“You didn’t catch his name?”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>“That’s too bad,” Ahsoka said.</p><p>“It really isn’t,” Anakin replied lightly, tugging out his phone. “I’m too busy to date anyone anyways.”</p><p>“Mm,” Ahsoka hummed. But before Anakin could decipher whatever that hum meant, Ahsoka asked, “Speaking of being busy—did you get all your books yet? Or are you still…”</p><p>“Nah,” Anakin replied, throwing a Coco Puff into the air. He caught it in his mouth and said, “Professors always fall behind their syllabi anyways. I’m just waiting it out. Besides,” he added, logging into his school’s assignment page, “This guy seems pretty new. New professors are always falling behind their syllabi.”</p><p>“How do you know he’s new?” Ahsoka asked, glancing once over at Anakin.</p><p>Anakin showed her his phone: <em>Obi-Wan Kenobi</em>, literature professor. The two classes under his name. “No picture,” he said. “So he’s either just been hired, or he’s only been around for a little while, or he’s just camera shy. And camera shy professors are awkward, and awkward professors never stay on top of their syllabi.”</p><p>“You’re generalizing,” Ahsoka said, shaking her head.</p><p>“No, I’m <em>under</em>generalizing,” Anakin said, looking back at his phone. He scrolled past the name of the class he was supposed to be taking—just an introduction class, just something he was taking as something to balance out all his other coursework for his master’s degree. It had been Padmé who had suggested it—the exploring other paths, the trying something new to balance out his already hectic life.</p><p>Padmé had always been the one to do that. Suggesting other directions to go, all that. She gave good advice. Anakin sometimes missed her advice.</p><p>“I’m <em>under</em>generalizing,” Anakin repeated. “All professors are awkward. Not just the camera shy ones. And because all professors are awkward, all professors can’t stay on top of their syllabi.”</p><p>“Again, a generalization,” Ahsoka replied, shaking her head. She typed a few more lines of code and, shoving Anakin away from her laptop—which he had now taken to leaning over, because Ahsoka was typing <em>fast</em>—she said, “And besides, what about this lit professor last night? Did you think <em>he </em>was awkward?”</p><p>“Well,” Anakin said, leaning back against the couch, “he was an anomaly. An outlier.”</p><p>Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “Just get the books.”</p><p>Anakin grinned. He stuck another handful of Coco Puffs in his mouth and, resting his feet on the coffee table, he said, “I will. Later.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” Ahsoka repeated, shaking her head. “You say that now…just get them, okay?”</p><p>--</p><p>So that was how Anakin eventually got himself to buy the books—just a few of them, not all of them, because he still stood by the fact that most professors did not, in fact, actually keep to the syllabus. He spent the next few hours hanging around the campus’ lawn, alternating between starting the problem sets for his other classes and checking his messages. (He didn’t have any.)</p><p>Eventually, Anakin became bored enough to read the beginning of one of the books that he had gotten for the literature class. He read the first chapter before deeming that he didn’t particularly care to read the book outside of class and shoved it back in his bag. He set it down on the grass, leaned back, and stared up at the clouds rolling across the sky. If Anakin didn’t have class in another half hour, he would have been tempted to just head back to his place.</p><p>That was another thing Padmé used to convince him of a lot: <em>stay here</em>, she would always say. <em>Stay with me</em>. And Anakin would be the one trying to convince her to flip that statement inside-out. Turn it upside-down. Whatever it was.</p><p><em>No, </em>he would say, <em>you should run away with me</em>. Run away from Anakin’s landlord when they were in elementary school, run away from the principal when they were in high school, run away from their undergrad classes.</p><p>They would always go back eventually—back to the landlord who asked for more rent from Anakin’s mom, back to the principal who told Padmé off for wearing a skirt that came up to mid-thigh, back to the undergrad classes where Anakin counted down the minutes before he could see Padmé again.</p><p><em>Run away with me</em>, he would say.</p><p><em>No, you should stay with me</em>, she would say back.</p><p>It was a little funny now.</p><p>In the end, Padmé had been the one who had ran. Anakin had been the one who stayed.</p><p>He didn’t blame her for it. He wanted to, and he tried to at first—but he didn’t.</p><p>He knew Ahsoka still talked to Padmé. He knew that they still exchanged text messages, and he knew that Ahsoka was still wondering when Anakin would be talking to Padmé again too. Talking to her normally. He would, eventually. Anakin knew he would. But right now was weird. Talking to Padmé now would be like talking in a dream: words coming out too slowly, everything blurred around the edges, no sense of time passing or anything.</p><p>Anakin heard the buzz of a bug nearby his ear. He batted it away and sat up. He swiped at the grass that was undoubtedly clinging to his back. Stood up, swung his backpack over his shoulders. He swatted at the grass sticking to the back of his legs too, and then he was looking around the lawn again. There were some more students out, now that a slight breeze had picked up. He saw a few undergrads—he could always tell who the undergrads were. Not just because they were <em>younger</em>, but also just because of the too-new looking backpacks and the self-conscious tugging of their shirts and the shy smiles and the very obviously new haircuts.</p><p>Anakin res-shouldered his backpack and glanced down at his watch. If he walked slowly, he could get to class in ten minutes. If he walked quickly, he could get to class in six, maybe seven minutes. The humanities buildings were all at the other end of campus anyways, sitting on top of all of these terrible stairs and hills. Anakin hated walking up those stairs.</p><p>Anakin glanced down at his watch again. He would walk slowly.</p><p>--</p><p>The lecture hall was somehow already packed by the time Anakin walked inside. <em>Nerds, all of them</em>, Anakin thought, swinging himself down to the first seat he could find: the very back, right where the doors would open. The front rows were already packed, and Anakin spotted both young women and men exchanging anxious glances amongst each other, looking at the clock, then back to the lectern, then to their notebooks and back to the clock again. It was all a very dizzying dance that Anakin decided not to keep track of.</p><p>He slipped out his own notebook. A pencil. He cast a glance at the others sitting around him—someone at least a decade older than Anakin was drumming his fingers along the desk. A young woman was writing up an email in front of Anakin. He averted his eyes and looked back down at his notebook. He flipped open the cover, wrote the date. Scribbled it out, wrote it again because he didn’t have anything else to do.</p><p>Anakin felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and he tugged it out.</p><p>A message from Ahsoka: <em>by the way, don’t wait up for me!!! </em></p><p>Anakin managed a smirk.</p><p><em>Happy anniversary, </em>he only texted back. And then he shoved his phone in his pocket, tugged it out again to do nothing except scroll through Facebook (nothing except a few alerts to wish a happy birthday to people Anakin wasn’t really friends with) and then Instagram (photos of artistic selfies and poses on the beach and cars and engagement rings. Anakin closed the app after that). He refreshed his email three times, and he was about to open up his laptop just to get some more of his problem sets done when the door suddenly opened behind him.</p><p>The entire lecture hall quieted down, the vibrations of nervous energy turning into little more than a faint hum as everyone swiveled around to see their professor.</p><p>Anakin smirked to himself, setting his phone down on his desk. <em>Relax</em>, he wanted to say.</p><p>But then he heard the voice behind him.</p><p>“Well,” the professor said, and Anakin’s blood froze. He whirled around, found Bookish’s grey-blue eyes flick only once down at him. Anakin thought he saw those eyebrows furrow, a blink, but then Bookish was already looking at the rest of the lecture hall, already walking down to the lectern. “There’s certainly more of you than I expected.”</p><p>Laughter rippled across the lecture hall, but Anakin didn’t feel like laughing. Not at all, as he watched Professor Obi-Wan Kenobi set up at the lectern. Anakin wondered if it was too late for him to get up and walk out of the lecture hall. He probably should. Because—</p><p>Obi-Wan looked up again, his eyes sweeping over everyone except for Anakin. And Anakin wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved by that or not. He decided he should be relieved. Because just last night—</p><p>Anakin remembered taking Obi-Wan’s glasses off his face. Falling back against the bed, hands hungrily tugging Obi-Wan closer to him. Obi-Wan’s hand clamped over his mouth. This morning. <em>Fuck</em>, that had been <em>this morning</em>.</p><p><em>A literature professor</em>, Anakin thought, his head spinning. What were the chances that the literature professor he had fucked last night happened to be the only literature professor teaching the only humanities class Anakin was supposed to take for the year?</p><p>“Well,” Obi-Wan repeated. He adjusted his glasses, set down a thermos of what Anakin had a strange feeling was green tea on the lectern. “Welcome to class. Shall we get started?”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Obi-Wan had spent fifteen minutes trying to decide where to sit in his apartment before finally calling Satine. He knew that Satine didn’t really care, just so long as he was sitting in a safe and warm apartment that didn’t have any rats of cockroaches, but still, he cared. Especially since Korkie would be on the call this time.</p><p>Which sent Obi-Wan’s stomach flip-flopping in a way that he hadn’t experienced since he was still a young man. That comment—<em>young man</em>—probably would have made Satine roll her eyes. “You act like you’re an ancient homebody,” she would say, brushing the hair out of Obi-Wan’s face. And they would laugh a little together, and Obi-Wan would think alright, <em>fine</em>, perhaps he wasn’t an ancient homebody just <em>yet</em>, but he certainly wouldn’t have minded becoming one with Satine.</p><p>That was what he used to think. And he was sure Satine used to think the same way. And he was sure that Korkie used to think the same way of them too. All the parent-teacher conferences, the school concerts, the science competitions: Obi-Wan had seen their son turn towards them, smile, and then back around with the full assurance that he had the support of both parents behind him. Their son had nearly sixteen years’ worth of that support and love. And now—</p><p>Obi-Wan cleared his throat now, adjusted his shirt. And then, bracing himself, he started the video call.</p><p>Two rings, and then Satine’s face filled the screen.</p><p>“There he is!” she said, and flashing Obi-Wan a quick smile, she looked over her shoulder and called, “Korkie—Dad’s on!”</p><p>Some muffled sounds: Satine turned back around to Obi-Wan sheepishly. “He’s not quite awake yet.”</p><p>“That’s fine,” Obi-Wan replied, glancing at the time at the edge of his laptop. Nearly ten. Obi-Wan had gotten up three hours ago, about a full thirty minutes before his guest. <em>Was that the right way to describe him? </em>The curly haired, blue-eyed young man who had followed Obi-Wan back to the apartment last night and talked briefly about Stephen King and Jane Austen and Chinua Achebe before taking off Obi-Wan’s glasses and setting it down on the nightstand. Who had dragged Obi-Wan down to him and <em>bit </em>into his shoulder.</p><p>That was definitely new. Obi-Wan clamping his hand over his guest’s slack mouth was a new thing too, but he had been <em>loud</em>, and Obi-Wan didn’t quite want to wake his new neighbors.</p><p>And last night had been fine—better than the other guests Obi-Wan had had since the divorce, but he was glad that the apartment was empty now. He hadn’t mentioned the divorce or his son to anyone he slept with thus far, and he certainly wasn’t about to start. They always left before the time came for Obi-Wan to call Satine and Korkie anyways, or, if he was at someone else’s apartment, Obi-Wan always made sure to leave as quickly as he could.</p><p>Now, Obi-Wan watched Korkie stumble into the view of the webcam, his curls sticking up a little at the front, but awake.</p><p>“Good morning, Korkie,” Obi-Wan said, hoping he sounded as cheerful as he wanted. “I like your hair.”</p><p>Korkie only mumbled a halfhearted “morning” before reaching somewhere off-camera. He returned back to the front of the webcam with a still-steaming mug of what Obi-Wan knew was coffee. He didn’t understand how his son could drink the stuff so easily, but right now, Korkie took a painfully long sip that Obi-Wan wasn’t sure was because Korkie actually wanted the coffee.</p><p>Satine caught Obi-Wan’s eye and with a grimace, she lowered the mug from Korkie’s face. “As you can see, someone’s gearing up for the school year,” Satine told Obi-Wan.</p><p>“That’s right,” Obi-Wan said. He looked at Korkie, hoping that his son would actually make eye-contact with him this time. “You’ve gotten your schedule now, I hear? Any teachers you’ve heard good things about?”</p><p>Korkie shrugged and again, Obi-Wan caught the apologetic look Satine threw him. Obi-Wan tried for a smile back—Korkie wasn’t looking at him anyways—but still, he wanted to tell Satine she didn’t have to look so sorry. He had seen this coming. They both had.</p><p>“What about your history class?” Obi-Wan asked. “World history? You were excited about taking it last year.”</p><p>“I guess,” Korkie replied. “Sure.” He fidgeted, picked up his mug again.</p><p>“You’re starting class today, aren’t you?” Satine asked at last, clearly needing to break the silence. “I forget—is it both of your classes, or just one of them?”</p><p>“Just one,” Obi-Wan replied. “An introductory class.”</p><p>“Well, that’s exciting,” Satine said. “New semester and all that.”</p><p>“It is,” Obi-Wan agreed. “I have a bigger lecture hall now. And a few more students than last year…well, we shall see how it goes.”</p><p>“It’ll go well,” Satine said, giving Obi-Wan another one of her quick smiles.</p><p>Obi-Wan managed a smile back, even though he knew they were both growing tired of this dance. This part of the fall, the part where things still felt strange and awkward and the two of them remembering too much why they were speaking to each other via webcam in the first place.</p><p>“Maybe Korkie could sit in on one of your classes,” Satine suggested, glancing over at their son. “You used to like doing that, right? It might be fun, visiting campus again.”</p><p>“Sure,” Korkie said, picking up his mug again. He ran a hand through his curls again, making them stick up higher than they had just a minute ago. “Can I go now? I told the others I’d be meeting with them soon.”</p><p>Another strange silence.</p><p>And then Obi-Wan said, “Of course, Korkie. Tell your friends hello for me.”</p><p>“Sure,” Korkie repeated, picking up his coffee mug. He waved halfheartedly at the screen, and kissing Satine briefly on the side of her head, he shuffled away from the view of the webcam, leaving Obi-Wan with only Satine.</p><p>Neither of them spoke—not until Obi-Wan imagined Korkie had disappeared into his room.</p><p>“Well,” Obi-Wan said, glancing down at the time again. “That was three minutes longer than last time.”</p><p>“I don’t know what’s worse,” Satine sighed. “The fact that you counted or the fact that we’re considering three movements as improvement.” She looked guiltily at the camera. “Not that it <em>isn’t </em>improvement, but…”</p><p>“I know,” Obi-Wan said, examining an invisible speck of dust on his keyboard. “But we both knew this would take some time for him to get used to. This isn’t easy for him.”</p><p>“I know,” Satine agreed with a sigh. “But still…” She presses her lips together, looked at Obi-Wan. “He <em>is </em>looking forward to seeing you this weekend, just so you know. He might not say it, but I know he’s counting down the days.”</p><p>Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if Satine was just trying to make him feel better or not. Either way, Obi-Wan appreciates the effort. So he just smiled.</p><p>“I’m looking forward to it too,” he replied.</p><p>And then they both closed out of the call, and Obi-Wan had stared around his empty apartment and tried to imagine showing Korkie around the small space. But all he could see was Korkie walking away from him, walking out of the building, slamming the car door in his face.</p><p>Obi-Wan sighed, setting his head down on the table. He had fifteen minutes, he decided, before he had to get up and actually leave for class. But for fifteen minutes, he could brood.</p><p>Fifteen minutes.</p><p>—</p><p>Obi-Wan took seventeen minutes to brood instead. Which was why he wound up coming to class a minute later than he intended. Not to his surprise, he found that the lecture hall was already packed with a surprising amount of students—<em>very surprising</em>, because he was sure that there had only been forty students registered to the roster, but then again, this <em>was </em>the class shopping period, so Obi-Wan supposed he should have expected more than his usual.</p><p>Still, he hadn’t expected the lecture hall to be so…filled. With swiveling heads, all of them looking right at Obi-Wan.</p><p>“Well,” was all he could say at first. He tried to look elsewhere, found the first face sitting to his left—and his heart plummeted.</p><p>Because the curly haired, blue-eyed smirker from this morning was sitting right there.</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked. And he saw the sheer panic on the young man’s face, and that was what snapped Obi-Wan back to the attention of the lecture hall. “There’s certainly more of you than I expected,” he managed to say, his voice surprisingly even. He had a knack for that, at least according to Satine and Korkie. The Official Professor Voice—that was what they had both called it whenever Obi-Wan was giving a presentation or gearing for an argument.</p><p>He heard laughter echo around the lecture hall. Good—a humorous bunch, then. Obi-Wan could work with that.</p><p>He walked down to the lectern, readjusting his grip on his thermos. “Well,” he only said, once reaching the lectern. He set the thermos on the lectern, looked up at the faces before him again. He eyed the curly-haired young man still sitting at the far back, at that seat closest to the door. Obi-Wan half-expected him to get up, leave the lecture hall right there. And frankly, Obi-Wan wouldn’t have blamed him, but no, he stayed put.</p><p>“Welcome to class,” Obi-Wan said at last. He made brief eye-contact with a few eager-looking students at the front rows. “Shall we get started?”</p><p>A wave of agreeing murmurs and nods filled the lecture hall.</p><p>“Right, then,” Obi-Wan said, and he looked to the blackboard behind him. “Lovely,” he said. “I didn’t have a blackboard last year.” He turned back around to the students in front of him. “I prefer white boards,” he said. “Chalk always makes an awful sound, wouldn’t you agree?”</p><p>More nods and faint laughter.</p><p>“So I’ll make a deal with all of you,” Obi-Wan said, reaching over for the stub of chalk sitting at the edge of the blackboard. He held it up at the lectern, managing a smile. He noticed the blue-eyed student in the back squirming a little in his seat, sinking lower and lower. Obi-Wan frankly wanted to do the same, especially when those blue eyes fixed on him.</p><p>“A deal,” Obi-Wan repeated. “I’ll trust all of you to keep up with the syllabus, and I’ll spare you the infinitely infuriating sound of chalk scraping against the blackboard. Agreed?”</p><p>“Yes,” everyone chorused.</p><p>“Wonderful,” Obi-Wan said, and he nodded to the grad student sitting at the front row: Cody, who had been his TA for the last years’ classes as well. Cody nodded back and stood up, his arms already laden with the syllabi. He handed Obi-Wan a half of the stack, and the two took to distributing the syllabi around the lecture hall.</p><p>“Now,” Obi-Wan said, passing along a whole sheath of syllabi down one of the rows, “even though this is an introductory class, you will find that there is still a certain amount of work expected of each and every one of you. I understand literature may not be the most interesting subject for many of you, so for all of your sakes, I shall try to not bore you to tears.”</p><p>Some more laughter, and Obi-Wan passed along some more syllabi. He walked up the steps, making sure to just nod and smile. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that he was getting closer and closer to the curly haired, blue-eyed young man who was twitching just the faintest bit.</p><p><em>Stay calm</em>, Obi-Wan wanted to tell him.</p><p>But he maintained a casual tone as he stepped up to him, passing him the last syllabus. He was the only one sitting in his row. Obi-Wan tried to keep his face blank, but it was difficult: he found those electric blue eyes, the slightly parted lips. No longer smirking, Obi-Wan noticed. Well, he figured he didn’t have anything worth smirking about.</p><p>“As you can see,” Obi-Wan said, stepping away. “Office hours are on the front of the syllabus. But if you have classes or other appointments during that time, feel free to email me for a meeting outside that time.” He walked back down to the front of the lecture hall and looked back up to the slam of a door.</p><p><em>Ah</em>, Obi-Wan thought, eyeing the empty seat. <em>So he’s gone</em>.</p><p>“So,” he said, picking up the stub of chalk again. “As you all take a look at the syllabus and question whether you want to remain in this class—which I hope you do—allow me to give you a brief idea of what material we’ll be looking at…”</p><p>Another slam of a door, and Obi-Wan found the blue-eyed non-smirker slinking back into his seat, face pink but determined. The non-smirker caught Obi-Wan’s gaze, pressed his lips together before flipping open his notebook.</p><p>“As I was saying,” Obi-Wan managed to say, turning back around to the rest of the lecture hall, “the first few books will be covering…”</p><p>—</p><p>“I’ll be expecting your forum posts by Wednesday evening,” Obi-Wan said as students started shuffling for their notebooks, their backpacks. “So on Thursday, be prepared to have a productive discussion.”</p><p>A few students tossed Obi-Wan a smile, while others were already out the doors. In the meantime, Obi-Wan shuffles his own notes, his own notebook out of the way on the lectern. He picked up his thermos, untwisted the cap and peered inside, even though he knew it was still nearly half full.</p><p>“So,” Cody said now, coming up to the lectern, “how many do you think will last?”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know,” Obi-Wan replied mildly, twisting the cap back on his thermos. He could feel a pair of eyes watching him carefully, and he didn’t have to look up to know exactly who it was. “They seem like a cheerful bunch.”</p><p>“And the forum posts?” Cody said, handing Obi-Wan the roster of student names.</p><p>“We’ll take care of them with odd and even numbers,” Obi-Wan replied. “Split down the middle, just like last time.”</p><p>Cody nodded. “Anything else?”</p><p>“No, that’s all,” Obi-Wan replied. “Thank you.”</p><p>Cody nodded again. “I’ll be off then,” he said, swinging his backpack over his shoulders. “If you need—”</p><p>“Yes, Cody,” Obi-Wan said with another smile.</p><p>Cody huffed our a short laugh and, with a shake of his head, he started up the lecture hall. Obi-Wan watched him leave, and then it was just a few stragglers and himself: and the blue-eyed smirker who was not smirking.</p><p>Obi-Wan cleared his throat. He packed his things, headed up the lecture hall. Kept his pace casual, uncaring, and only when he got to the door did he glance back at the blue-eyed non-smirker.</p><p>And then he was pushing himself out the door, and then he was walking up the stairs to his office—and exactly thirty-two seconds later, Obi-Wan heard the door of the lecture hall open underneath him. Obi-Wan slipped into his office, let the door stay open just a crack, and then he sat down at his desk. He had only just put down his thermos and his notes when the door opened.</p><p>Obi-Wan was ashamed of how quickly he stood up, how his eyes snapped so quickly to the door.</p><p>The blue-eyed non-smirker looked back at him.</p><p>Neither of them spoke. Obi-Wan could hear the tick of the watch around the non-smirker’s wrist.</p><p>Finally, Obi-Wan said, “I’ll admit this wasn’t exactly how I thought the semester would start.”</p><p>“You’re not the only one,” the non-smirker said. “I didn’t…” He ran a hand through his hair. Obi-Wan tried not think about how he had been the one to run his own fingers through those curls. And then some.</p><p>“Listen,” the non-smirker said, “I can’t drop this class. Trust me, I thought about it.” He was speaking a little faster, much faster than he had this morning. Then again, they had both been much more relaxed this morning—</p><p>“This is just my last requirement,” the non-smirker added. “And just for a semester. And then I’ll be out of your—and then we can pretend none of this happened. Just a one-night thing, right?”</p><p>“Yes,” Obi-Wan replied automatically. He skirted his eyes downward to the desk, readjusted his thermos on the surface. “Well.” He flicked his eyes back up at the non-smirker. “Since you’re now a student of mine,” he said, inwardly cringing at the term <em>student</em>, “I might as well know your name. Seems only fair, since you know mine.”</p><p>“Since you said it’s <em>only fair</em>…” the non-smirker said, shaking his head. He looked at Obi-Wan. “Anakin Skywalker.”</p><p>“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Obi-Wan replied. “Though you already know that.”</p><p>“So what now?” Anakin asked, dropping his hands to his sides.</p><p>“Now,” Obi-Wan said, sitting down at the desk, “I suppose we just go about our business. You <em>do </em>have some assignments waiting for you now, as you could probably tell from the syllabus.”</p><p>“Right,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan caught just the beginning of an eye-roll. But then, as though remembering where he was, Anakin stopped and looked back down at Obi-Wan. “I got it…Professor Kenobi.”</p><p><em>Professor Kenobi</em>—and time think, just last night; they had been strangers.</p><p>“Make sure you do,” Obi-Wan replied. Managed to reply. He saw the corner of Anakin’s lips twitch, wanted immediately to tell him <em>no, no smirking, no smirking anymore</em>—</p><p>So he said bluntly, “Don’t think the sex changed anything, Anakin. I still fully expect you to try in this class, and you can fully expect to be graded just like the others.” He looked down at his notes, shifted some papers aside without even looking at what was what. “They’re graded blind, anyways. You’ll <em>also </em>notice on the syllabus that you are not to put your name on any of your papers or forum posts—only your ID number. That’ll make things easy for the two of us. Unbiased.”</p><p>“Fair,” Anakin replied breezily. <em>There are only few times one can ever use that word to describe someone</em>, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but think. But Anakin was just that—casual, now crossing his arms over his chest. Someone who was taking this all in a surprising stride.</p><p>“Right,” Obi-Wan said, shoving his notes aside. He looked at Anakin over his glasses. “So I’ll be expecting your forum post by Wednesday evening.”</p><p>“Consider it done,” Anakin replied.</p><p>“Good,” Obi-Wan replied. He started to take his glasses off his face, decided he would rather keep them on. “That is all.”</p><p>“Wonderful,” Anakin said, readjusting his grip on his backpack. He took a few steps back, and with a two-fingered salute—the same kind he had given him this morning, Obi-Wan noted with a squeeze of his chest, Anakin said, “See you ‘round, Professor.”</p><p>And then Anakin was gone.</p><p>Obi-Wan waited another thirty seconds before sinking his head to his desk.</p><p>The semester was off to a horrific start.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thank you for all the support! next chapter will be up by next monday! </p><p>comments &amp; kudos are loved and appreciated!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin hovered at the top of the stairs to the humanities building. And then he turned around, looking up at the windows. He wasn’t even sure which one was Obi-Wan’s window—if he even could see Anakin from where he was, but Anakin decided he didn’t care.</p><p>He turned back around and walked down the stairs. He made it to the first platform of the stone stairs before tilting his head back up to the sky.</p><p>The semester was off to an interesting start.</p><p>--</p><p>Anakin almost wished Ahsoka was back at the apartment when he finally reached their place. He could just imagine Ahsoka’s reaction now: the wide eyes, the <em>holyshitholyshitholyshit</em>, the awkward “oh this is terrible” laughter that would come a second later. Anakin felt like he needed to laugh about this. He probably should, but he didn’t feel like laughing at all. Mostly, he still felt embarrassed, because Anakin had spent the entire class just watching the little tilt of Obi-Wan’s head when he lectured and wondering just how much the universe must have hated him if <em>this </em>was really the situation Anakin was now in.</p><p>And Anakin became very, very glad that he had been sitting all the way in the back, because a part of him—a small, idiotic part of him—was still embarrassingly, horrifically turned on when Obi-Wan had walked closer and closer up to him, those grey-blue eyes flashing behind his glasses.</p><p>And then Obi-Wan had been mentioning something about office hours, but Anakin didn’t bother sticking around for what was after that. He had practically thrown himself out of the room because of the heat in his pants. He had taken care of it in a bathroom stall on the floor below, biting back the groan that had threatened to leave his lips. And then Anakin had felt a mixture of annoyance and horror with himself, because <em>fuck</em>, if he was really going to have to jack off whenever Obi-Wan even so much <em>glanced </em>at him—</p><p>It wasn’t even like Anakin <em>liked </em>Obi-Wan. It was just <em>one </em>night, but it had been <em>last night</em>, and Anakin figured that was messing around with all of his instincts.</p><p>Which he <em>really </em>didn’t need.</p><p>Anakin slammed himself down on the couch now, tugged out his laptop from his bag. He had to distract himself from the horror show that was the first day of classes. He opened up some of his problem sets, but none of the equations and numbers and letters floating in front of Anakin’s eyes made sense.</p><p>He closed out of the problem sets, tried to do some of the reading for this literature class. He got through half of the second chapter before realizing that he had read the same sentence three times and still didn’t know what was going on.</p><p>So Anakin set down that book too, got up. Took a shower. Got back to the living room. Checked his phone for messages (and there were none for him to check). He hoped Ahsoka and Trace were at least having a good time.</p><p>Anakin slumped back on the couch. Opened up his laptop again, but he didn’t pull up the problem sets.</p><p>Instead, he went straight to the university website and pulled up the search engine.</p><p>Anakin typed up Obi-Wan’s name, found the same result that he had earlier today, back when he was still ignorant who his professor was. Still no photo, just the two courses Obi-Wan taught, followed by a small box of information regarding where Obi-Wan had gone to school and gotten his degrees (English, Comparative Literature). He had apparently written some papers, gotten some recognition for both of them. Taught briefly in places like Scotland and Finland and even South Korea.</p><p>With no intention of actually reading them, Anakin pulled up articles and papers on Obi-Wan’s work: something about legal systems represented in different works of literature. Anakin couldn’t help but smirk a little to himself—he somehow wasn’t surprised.</p><p>Anakin scrolled through the search results. Obi-Wan had been cited by enough people to make him wonder exactly how his dear one-night-stand-turned-professor didn’t have a photo on the university page. <em>Camera shy</em>, he thought. <em>Awkward. </em></p><p>Or maybe not—Obi-Wan hadn’t been awkward in the lecture hall. He was <em>liked</em>. Students <em>laughed </em>at him, and his TA and he seemed like they were on friendly terms. And even after seeing Anakin, Obi-Wan had just gone about the rest of the class as though he were just another face. Voice level, none of those awful drifting-voice-into-embarrassing-silence that Anakin sometimes witnessed amongst other academics. (Not that Anakin had ever knowingly slept with any other professors. At least, not any professors within his own school. This was new. Entirely new.)</p><p>Anakin took to the school’s newspaper—yes, he was even going to check the school’s newspaper—and found a few short articles on literature-related events on campus. And there, Anakin found some photos of Obi-Wan, hosting some panel. Anakin ignored the little kick in his stomach that really could have been anything to <em>huh, he looks good </em>to <em>fuck, fuck, fuck, I slept with </em>this <em>guy</em> as he scrolled through some of the pictures. Obi-Wan dressed in a grey and black striped sweater that Anakin had definitley seen when he was in his room this morning. A black peacoat draped over the back of his chair that Anakin had also…definitely seen when he had spotted Obi-Wan in the bar last night.</p><p>Anakin checked the date on the articles—a few years ago. But Anakin wouldn’t have been able to tell: Obi-Wan was still wearing the same wire-rimmed glasses Anakin had slipped off last night, still had the same hair. Anakin was about to close out of the article entirely when he caught another photo of Obi-Wan: this time a closer shot of Obi-Wan shaking hands with some author. Anakin noticed the band of gold around Obi-Wan’s ring finger, which he knew hadn’t been on Obi-Wan’s hand last night or this morning or in class.</p><p>Anakin frowned at the photo. Obi-Wan didn’t exactly <em>strike </em>him as a cheater—</p><p>Maybe a divorce.</p><p>Anakin hoped it was a divorce. He hadn’t seen anything in Obi-Wan’s apartment this morning that might have suggested he had been or was a married man. But if he was—</p><p>Anakin’s stomach twisted. He wouldn’t have just slept with a professor; he would have slept with a <em>married </em>professor—</p><p>“But he’s not,” Anakin said aloud, closing his laptop. He shoved the device away, pushed himself back down on the couch. He rested his head on the armrest, stretched his legs against the rest of the couch cushions. He blindly reached for the book he had to read for class and propped it open on his chest.</p><p>He read the same sentence three times over before shoving the book aside. Today was enough. Good riddance, today.</p><p>Anakin closed his eyes.</p><p>--</p><p>Ahsoka still hadn’t come back to the apartment when Anakin woke up, which Anakin wasn’t sure was a good or bad thing. He blinked up from the couch for a few dazed seconds, more so because his stomach was growling than the fact that his alarm was going off.</p><p>Anakin’s hand fumbled for his phone, shut off the alarm. He sat up, cracking his spine and his neck as he went along. He managed to stumble into the kitchen, dump out a bowl of cereal. He ate the whole bowl in seconds, went to take a shower, change his clothes.</p><p>All of Anakin’s movements felt slow and viscous, as though he was moving through syrup. <em>Day-old student</em>, Anakin thought to himself, squeezing out the last of the shampoo. He didn’t feel bad about it. Ahsoka probably was taking a shower at Trace’s, anyways, and Anakin could buy shampoo later.</p><p>By the time Anakin got out of the shower, his head felt a little clearer, his own skin feeling less…muggy. Felt more like his own, instead of some stranger’s. Anakin allowed himself to enjoy that feeling for about thirty seconds before glancing down at his phone and swearing. He was already late for class.</p><p>--</p><p>Anakin went into class ten minutes late, which wasn’t really too bad, but his professor still gave him some stink-eye when he walked in. Anakin didn’t care. He plopped himself down in the first empty seat he could find, one next to a brown-skinned young man who spared him a quick side-glance. He looked vaguely familiar, but Anakin didn’t think too much on it, because he needed to scribble down the notes that the professor was already about to erase.</p><p>The rest of the day went something like that: Anakin writing down notes that he only had a few seconds to process, feeling both caught in and out of time as the minutes ticked past. He supposed it could have been worse—he could have had Obi-Wan’s class again—</p><p>No, that was a tomorrow problem—</p><p>And then class was ending, and chairs were slamming back and students were filing out of the lecture hall, and Anakin was still trying to remember the last thing his professor said. Anakin hastily slammed his notebook shut, shoved it in his backpack. He stood up and got a corner of the desk right into his stomach. Anakin grunted a little, heard someone quietly laugh somewhere near him. But when Anakin looked up, there was no one looking at him—so Anakin only scowled, more to himself than to anyone else, and slung his backpack over his shoulder.</p><p>He managed to walk out of the building without any more blunders, and only when Anakin was standing on the lawn in front of the engineering buildings did he realize that he hadn’t zipped up his backpack.</p><p>Anakin sat down on the grass, waving aside a curious bee that floated his way. He yanked up the zipper of his backpack and was about to stand up and go on his way—probably find lunch—when he saw something bright yellow come whizzing his way.</p><p>“Watch out!” a shout came a second later, and Anakin ducked just in time to avoid getting hit in the face with the Frisbee.</p><p>Anakin turned around and picked up the Frisbee as he heard footsteps rushing his way. He heard some other shouts, some groans, and then Anakin turned back around to look up at what he at least had the brainpower to remember was the person he had been sitting next to in class earlier today.</p><p>“Sorry ‘bout that,” his classmate said, rubbing at the back of his neck with a sheepish grin.</p><p>“No problem,” Anakin replied, handing back the Frisbee. He looked over his classmate’s shoulder to see a few other twentysomethings who, after a second blink, Anakin realized looked almost exactly the same as the person standing in front of him.</p><p>“You think you’re ready for the quiz next week?” Anakin’s classmate asked now, flipping the Frisbee over in his hands.</p><p>Anakin blinked. Stood up. He figured this was a standing-up conversation. “Sure,” he replied. “As soon as I can figure out how to read our professor’s handwriting.”</p><p>His classmate grinned. It was a nice grin, one that made the edges of his brown eyes crinkle. “I’m Rex,” he said, sticking out a hand. “And I’ve taken one of his other classes before, so if you ever need help figuring out his handwriting…”</p><p>“Anakin,” Anakin replied, shaking Rex’s hand. “So you’re used to his classes then.”</p><p>“Definitley not,” Rex said. There were some more shouts behind him, and Rex held up a finger. “Just a second.” He tossed the Frisbee through the air, and Anakin watched as the cluster of Rex look-alikes—brothers, Anakin guessed now. Cousins, maybe—staggered backwards to catch it.</p><p>“Are they your…”</p><p>“Clones,” Rex said seriously. “Pretty sure we were all engineered in a lab somewhere. Or spontaneous generation.”</p><p>Anakin decided that he liked Rex. “Or maybe a bunch of eggs.”</p><p>Rex gave Anakin an appraising look, and Anakin had the feeling that Rex had made the same evaluation and judgement on him.</p><p>“So you were saying you’ve taken other classes of his before?” Anakin asked, nodding at Rex. “So you’ve got all his stuff down-pat?”</p><p>“Definitley not,” Rex replied with a little huff. “He’s impossible.”</p><p>A corner of Anakin’s lips twitched. “So you’re making allies.”</p><p>“That’s one way to put it,” Rex replied. He glanced over at Anakin again, and this time, Anakin took a closer look at him—really looked at him, and then Anakin remembered something else.</p><p>“You don’t happen to have a relative who TAs for a lit class, do you?” Anakin asked after a beat.</p><p>“I do, in fact,” Rex said, rubbing at the back of his neck again. He looked at Anakin. “You’re taking a lit class?”</p><p>“Requirement,” Anakin replied almost sheepishly.</p><p>“Ah,” Rex nodded. “Yeah. Cody. He’s a bit of a stickler for the rules, but he’s a fair grader.” The Frisbee came whizzing back in their direction, and this time, Rex caught it out of the air before it could fly over their heads. He glanced back at Anakin and jerked his head towards the rest of the lawn. “You game?”</p><p>Anakin considered it. And then he shrugged off his backpack. “Got nothing better to do.”</p><p>“Great,” Rex replied. He passed the Frisbee to Anakin, and Anakin tossed it to Rex’s relatives.</p><p>To the rest of the group’s credit, there wasn’t too much confusion when Anakin joined. Anakin quickly learned that they were all, in fact, brothers or cousins. A big family—Anakin caught a snippet of conversation that contained more names than Anakin had ever heard in one breath before.</p><p>They were all a competitive bunch, too: in just a few minutes, Anakin was already red-faced from both laughing and running hard around the field. His shirt and his jeans were grass-stained, and his backpack and work lay long forgotten, even after some of Rex’s brothers—Fives and Echo, who seemed bound at the hip—had to leave for actual classes. (Well, Echo insisted on going to class, and Fives reluctantly followed.)</p><p>“So,” Rex said, tossing the Frisbee to Anakin, “did you transfer here or…?”</p><p>“Nah,” Anakin replied, catching the Frisbee. He flipped the disk around his hands and threw it back to Rex. “I took a year off. Just to get some work.” Mostly to get some work—he had wound up working at a software company for some time, which had been fine. A little boring, but fine. Just to prove that he could do something instead of moping around the apartment.</p><p>“Anything interesting?”</p><p>“Nah,” Anakin repeated. He grabbed the Frisbee out of the air. “Yourself?”</p><p>“No years off,” Rex replied. He threw the Frisbee to one of his brothers—Jesse, who wore an impressive tattoo on his face. “Just going straight through, like everyone else.” He caught the Frisbee and looked past Anakin. “And, speaking of—” He waved his hand, and Anakin turned around.</p><p>He saw Obi-Wan first, Cody second.</p><p>Obi-Wan was wearing a different shirt—<em>duh</em>, Anakin thought, <em>different day</em>—a grey button-up, tan slacks. He had a leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and he had been smiling at something Cody said, but then Cody was waving back at Rex, and Anakin saw Obi-Wan’s eyes flicker over to him.</p><p>“Watch out!”</p><p>This time, Anakin didn’t turn around on time. Pain burst at the back of his head, and he stumbled forward, already trying to blink the yellow dots out of his eyes. He heard some groans, some surprised shouts around him, and then more footsteps—multiple pairs of footsteps, and when Anakin finally came to, he found himself looking down at three other pairs of shoes.</p><p>“<em>Jesse</em>,” Rex said. “What—”</p><p>“Sorry!” There were some more footsteps, and another pair of feet joined them. “You good?”</p><p>“Fine,” Anakin managed, lifting his head. He rubbed the back of his head, managed a quick smile that turned into a wince. “Been through worse.”</p><p>An embarrassed laugh from Jesse, and then Cody—because Cody was standing next to Anakin—said, “If you need to go to the health center—”</p><p>“Nah, I’m fine,” Anakin said. He rubbed at the back of his head again, blinked a few times. Found that it was Obi-Wan who was standing directly in front of him. <em>Not </em>directly<em>, </em>Anakin corrected himself. Still a good few steps away. Probably a passable amount of steps away for a pair of strangers. And a passable amount of concern from a stranger, too: Obi-Wan’s eyebrows were drawn together, a crease appearing on his forehead from how he had been frowning. Which would have been touching, if Anakin’s head didn’t hurt so much.</p><p>“Professor Kenobi,” Anakin said, resisting the urge to add “<em>isn’t it?</em>”. “I don’t suppose this excuses me from this week’s homework, does it?”</p><p>A confused look from Cody, and then Obi-Wan, catching that look, said, “One of our students.”</p><p>Cody’s face cleared. “Oh.”</p><p>“Well,” Obi-Wan said, adjusting the messenger bag over his shoulder, “if the health center picks up a serious…”</p><p>“I was just joking,” Anakin said, dropping his hand from his head. “I’ll get that post up.”</p><p>“If you’re up for the challenge,” Obi-Wan replied with a wry smile.</p><p>“It’s a good thing I like challenges then,” Anakin said. He paused, wondering if that came off as—</p><p>“Indeed,” Obi-Wan said dryly.</p><p>So maybe not.</p><p>“It’s good to see you, Rex, Jesse,” was all Obi-Wan said next, and with a little tilt of his head to the group, Obi-Wan took a few steps back. Cody only shrugged at Rex and the others, mouthed, <em>no trouble</em> before following Obi-Wan off the lawn.</p><p>“You know Obi—Professor Kenobi?” Anakin asked, looking at Rex.</p><p>Rex shrugged. “Cody’s TA’d him for a few semesters now,” he replied. “So we’ve run into each other more than once.” He looked at Anakin, paused. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the health center?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin replied, waving his hand. “Wasn’t kidding when I said I’ve been through worse.”</p><p>“Then why’s your face red?” Jesse asked.</p><p>Now that Jesse said it, Anakin could feel heat prickling at his cheeks. More heat.</p><p>“Must be the running,” Anakin said. He leaned down, scooped up his backpack. “So are you going to help me figure out our prof’s notes or what?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>fun fact: while i have never been hit on the head with a frisbee, i have run into a wall at full-speed and gotten hit on the head with a football because ya girl is (1) doofus and (2) idk just prone to minor accidents. i figured that even if anakin has fast reflexes, he doesn't stand a chance when he's busy ogling at obi-wan. </p><p>comments &amp; kudos &amp; subs. are always nice!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Do you know him?"</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked, turned to Cody. For a moment, he forgot what it was he had just been asked. And then, at Cody's pointed glance back at the lawn, Obi-Wan remembered. He glanced back anyways, hoping that the gesture came off as a casual once-over. Cody's relatives were still huddled around Anakin, and Obi-Wan caught a brief glimpse of the young man's red face before quickly turning back around.</p><p>"Well, I would certainly hope so," Obi-Wan said mildly. "Since he's one of our students."</p><p>"Ah," Cody said. He glanced backwards again, turned to Obi-Wan. "Seemed like you two knew each other outside of that. Maybe a different class."</p><p>Obi-Wan lifted his shoulders. "I've never had him in my other class," he replied. "But he <em>did </em>come to my office hours, so that might speak to the familiarity."</p><p>"Already?" Cody asked as they mounted the steps to the humanity building. "Must be an eager student."</p><p><em>In ways more than one</em>, Obi-Wan thought, and suddenly he saw himself clamping a hand over Anakin's mouth again, the whispered "<em>come here, come here</em>"—</p><p>Obi-Wan coughed, adjusted his grip on his bag.</p><p>"Alright?"</p><p>"Fine," Obi-Wan replied, clearing his throat. "Throat was dry."</p><p>"Hope you're not coming down with something," Cody said, swinging open the door of the humanities building. "Terrible way to start off the year."</p><p>Obi-Wan managed a wry smile before slipping in through the building. "I assure you," he said as they walked through the entrance, "I am in perfect health." They headed down the hall, and Obi-Wan tugged at his bag again. "Now, about the sections…"</p><p>—</p><p>The rest of the day passed by in some daze of class housekeeping and emails and research (Obi-Wan wasted nearly fifteen minutes of scrolling through a journal before realizing that it was not, in fact, going to be of any help to him). Cody had left after about an hour of going through some of the class logistics and planning points of discussion.</p><p>"Three weeks before twenty percent of the discussion section cuts class," Cody said.</p><p>"Pessimistic."</p><p>"Realistic."</p><p>"Fair enough. We'll see what happens when they actually write their papers."</p><p>And then Cody had gone up for his own classes, repeated, "<em>three weeks</em>" before strolling out. Obi-Wan had only smiled after him, gone back to his own work. He was glad that Cody was still his TA—he was steady, balanced, hardworking. Obi-Wan would miss him when he graduated.</p><p>Obi-Wan pushed through another online journal—this one was a little more relevant to what he was looking for, but not quite. Obi-Wan let out a small <em>tsk </em>of both frustration and wistfulness. The article was certainly interesting, and Obi-Wan saved it anyways: he might read it later anyways, even if he wouldn't need it for his own research.</p><p>The hours pressed on, and soon the light in Obi-Wan's office had shifted to a warmer, mellower glow that signaled it was time for him to leave.</p><p>Obi-Wan sighed, leaned back against his chair. He blinked a few times, took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes hard enough that he saw green and yellow light from under his eyelids. He slipped his glasses back on, glanced around his office. He could hear the sounds of others in this building leaving. Somewhere below him, a classroom door opened, and many pairs of feet heading out reached up to Obi-Wan. Somewhere to his right, someone was very aggressively slamming cabinet doors shut. Somewhere to his left, someone was talking on the phone, though Obi-Wan couldn't make out any of the conversation.</p><p>Obi-Wan looked back down at his laptop. He could close it, go back to his apartment.</p><p><em>Just one more page</em>, Obi-Wan thought, clicking for the next page of results.</p><p>—</p><p><br/>It was nearly dark by the time Obi-Wan finally closed his laptop. Dark, and the only sounds now were some custodians moving around their wheeled bins. And Obi-Wan's eyes <em>really </em>hurt now, but he supposed that was what he deserved for staring at a bright screen long after the light had faded from outside. He had at least bothered to turn on his desk lamp, even though he knew that he could just get up and turn on the overhead lights. But he had been in the middle of reading some other article, and he couldn't quite be bothered just yet, and he was almost done reading the article anyways—</p><p>Obi-Wan closed his laptop now, blinked away the words floating across his vision. He stood up slowly, stretched his arms over his head. He rolled his shoulders, stretched his legs. Really, he shouldn't remain seated for so long.</p><p>Obi-Wan tucked his laptop back in his bag and turned off the desk lamp. He tugged out his phone and noted the time—already nearing eight, which explained the grumbling in his stomach. He couldn't remember when he had lunch. Before one?</p><p>He slung on his jacket and tucked his bag over his shoulder. He glanced back at his office, noted that everything was in its place, and then he walked out. He exchanged "have a nice night"s with the custodians, passed by some half-filled classrooms of upperclassmen gearing up to attack freshmen with their organizations and clubs. (Debate team, literary magazine, mock trial…they all seemed to hole themselves up in the humanities building after class hours, which Obi-Wan thought was fitting. He only wished that the debate team would stop shouting about who could Iron-Man a round, whatever that meant—)</p><p>Obi-Wan was greeted with a cool breeze when he walked out of the humanities building. It still was only late August, soon to be September, but still, the temperature was already dropping enough that he was glad to have brought his jacket.</p><p>He made his way down to the bottom of the humanities building, and then he was making his way to the parking lots. He saw some students walking from the direction of the on-campus store—he knew they had to be coming from the store judging by the plastic grocery bags stuffed to the brim with brightly-colored bags of chips or candy or whatever the study snack of choice was. Some other students were walking into the library, which remained open for almost all hours of the day, and he could tell from their relaxed pace that they were probably going to the library more out of a need to lounge around somewhere rather than study.</p><p>Obi-Wan walked down the long hill to the other side of campus, where one of the buildings—a great, green-blue-looking behemoth that most students either loved or hated—remained lit up. He could see some students in the windows of the upper floors, getting ready for what he assumed was either the college radio station or some acapella practice. He couldn't tell which one—he just heard singing voices float from some of the windows.</p><p>He rounded the corner. Just another five minutes, and he'd make it to the parking lot.</p><p>Obi-Wan readjusted his grip on his bag. He winced, feeling a part of his bag dig a little harder into his shoulder than he anticipated. He really had to be careful—</p><p>"Fancy seeing you here."</p><p>"Well, I <em>do </em>work here," Obi-Wan said, ignoring the little jump in his chest at the voice. He looked to the side and found Anakin hovering just a little ways from him, backpack slung over his shoulders and hands shoved in his pockets. Not shoved in the bashful-don't-know-what-to-do-with-my-hands kind of way, but the casual my-hands-know-what-they're-doing kind of way.</p><p><em>Don't think about his hands</em>, Obi-Wan thought sternly.</p><p>"Do you make a habit of creeping up on your professors?" Obi-Wan asked, adjusting his grip on his bag again. He yanked at it a little harder than he meant to, and it nearly slipped off his shoulder. He managed to catch it before it could fall completely, but he knew that Anakin noticed because of the little smile he gave him.</p><p>"No," Anakin said, "just to answer your question. I don't make a habit of creeping up on professors."</p><p>"And I just happen to be the exception?" He probably shouldn't have said that.</p><p>"No," Anakin repeated, casting Obi-Wan a sidelong glance. "I'm just heading in this direction." He gestured. "Gotta catch the bus."</p><p>Obi-Wan suddenly wished he could turn back the clock for just those last ten seconds.</p><p>"Then you best be on your way," Obi-Wan said, gesturing down the sidewalk.</p><p>"It's not for another twenty minutes," Anakin replied. He glanced down at his watch. "And the bus stop's only a few minutes away."</p><p>"A planner?"</p><p>"No," Anakin said. "Just bored."</p><p>Obi-Wan shook his head, decided not to respond to that. He turned determinedly to the rest of the sidewalk before them. Thankfully, Anakin didn't say anything either. He shifted his backpack over his shoulders.</p><p>"How's your head?" Obi-Wan asked after a little while.</p><p>"Fine," Anakin replied. "I've got a hard head." He rapped his knuckles against his head to make the point. Obi-Wan only looked at him, and then Anakin quickly dropped his hand, adding, "Anyways, I got the forum post up, if you're worried about that at all."</p><p>"I <em>did </em>mean it when I said that if you had a medical emergency—"</p><p>"Which I didn't," Anakin said. "And getting hit on the head by a Frisbee isn't exactly the worst that could happen." He rolled his shoulders, added, "Now, getting hit on the head with a <em>baseball </em>at top speed—that hurts. Or having a whole line of hurdles crush you—that's also not fun. Or slipping off a diving board and cutting open your knee—"</p><p>"Do you mean to tell me that—"</p><p>"It's not even like I'm <em>clumsy</em>," Anakin said. "But yeah, I've had my fair share of medical emergencies." He turned to Obi-Wan. "Point is, I'm fine."</p><p>"So noted," Obi-Wan replied, turning back down to the sidewalk. He paused, and then after a moment, he asked, "Cutting open your <em>knee</em>?"</p><p>"Blood everywhere," Anakin replied cheerfully. "Got on the diving board, in the pool…I'm pretty sure I gave the lifeguard a heart attack. He was a kid—you know, first shift, and he has to deal with the lunatic who was trying to be fancy."</p><p>"Trying to be fancy," Obi-Wan repeated dryly. He cast Anakin a sidelong look. He somehow didn't have too much trouble imagining Anakin as the archetype arrogant athlete. "Dare I ask why?"</p><p>Obi-Wan wondered if he maybe shouldn't have asked, because Anakin's easy, cheerful expression started to fade a little. Not too much, but just enough that Anakin seemed thrown off-guard, his smile faltering for a second.</p><p>"Trying to impress someone," he said, rolling his shoulders again. And just like that, the smile was back again, this time a little brighter in the way that reminded Obi-Wan of a lightbulb right before it went out. "You know. Stupid stuff like that."</p><p>"Well," Obi-Wan said, "it makes for an interesting story." He cleared his throat, adjusted the strap of his bag. "At least tell me you succeeded."</p><p>"Hm?"</p><p>"Impressing someone," Obi-Wan clarified. "At least tell me that that person was impressed."</p><p>Another little twitch of Anakin's lips—not really that too-bright smile or the weak faltering of one, but a quieter, almost wistful little smile. "Not really," he said. "But she was worried. Wouldn't leave me alone about it for <em>weeks</em>. Lot of coddling and cuddling and et cetera." He cleared his throat then, turned to Obi-Wan. "Any medical emergencies of your own?"</p><p>Obi-Wan merely smiled down the sidewalk.</p><p>"What's that look for?" Anakin asked, bemused. "Think you can top me?"</p><p>There was a beat of silence as both men faltered in their stride.</p><p>And then Anakin said, "That wasn't what I—"</p><p>"I know," Obi-Wan said quickly.</p><p>"Not like, <em>top me</em>—"</p><p>"Anakin, I <em>know</em>—"</p><p>"—just talking about stupid injury stuff—"</p><p>"Yes," Obi-Wan said. He was relieved to see the entrance of the school coming up now, where Obi-Wan would depart to the parking lot and Anakin to the bus stop. "Just…the injuries." He cleared his throat again, searched blindly in his mind for something to add. He pointedly tried <em>not </em>to think about any other interpretations of Anakin's words, because—</p><p>"I should probably—uh, bus stop's right there," Anakin said. He gestured vaguely past the school entrance. "I'll—"</p><p>"Class tomorrow—"</p><p>"Right," Anakin said, and he was already stumbling past Obi-Wan, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. Obi-Wan could make out the slight pink of Anakin's neck from under the street lamps, and Obi-Wan wondered if he looked the same. He hoped he didn't.</p><p>Anakin turned around briefly, his hand still massaging the back of his neck. "Goodnight," he said.</p><p>"Goodnight," Obi-Wan managed. He wondered if it would be too much to smile, so he just settled for a little nod and a quick press of the lips. There, that was casual enough.</p><p>Anakin nodded back, and then he was spinning back around, breaking into a half-jog, half-speed-walk over to the bus stop. Obi-Wan saw another street lamp light him up briefly, a tall, broad-shouldered figure against the dark, and then Obi-Wan was turning away too, resuming his walk to the parking lot.</p><p>He found his car quickly, but even when he got inside, he didn't pull out of the lot right away. He glanced at his watch. Anakin had said that his ride was twenty minutes away, and they had passed what, four, maybe five minutes? Longer?</p><p>Obi-Wan leaned against the headrest. He would wait fifteen minutes, then. Fifteen minutes so that the bus stop would be empty by the time he pulled out of the school so he didn't have to risk any more interactions, even if it might just be something as small as a glance through the window.</p><p>Obi-Wan wasn't making anyone wait for him at home, anyways.</p><p>He turned on the light inside his car, and for a moment, he contemplated taking out his laptop and resuming his work instead. But then again, seeing that the last time he had done so he'd wound up nearly falling asleep right in his car, Obi-Wan decided against such.</p><p>He turned on his phone instead. He found some junk mail in his personal inbox, took to emptying that out when his phone buzzed him of a text that he had missed from a few hours ago.</p><p>Obi-Wan pulled up the text message and smiled. A friend of his was apparently coming back into town.</p><p><em>My schedule's clear for the next few days</em>, Padmé's text wrote. <em>Which only happens once in a blue moon. So that means we </em>have <em>to meet</em>.</p><p>Far be it for Obi-Wan to try arguing with his friend. He had really only known her for a few days, when they had happened to be attending the same conference. Well, Obi-Wan had been there for the conference: Padmé Amidala, a fresh law school graduate who was attending the conference with a colleague of hers. Obi-Wan had been a little surprised, but he hadn't bothered asking what the matter was, and Padmé seemed genuinely interested in the subject of the conference anyways. They wound up making small talk at first, mostly because they happened to sit next to each other and also because Padmé's colleague had left without so much as a second word. Obi-Wan had felt bad for her, and they wound up catching a taxi ride together.</p><p>And then the taxi driver had gotten lost and frustrated, and then Obi-Wan and Padmé had gotten out and tried to figure out their way back to the hotel on their own. (Fortunately, GPS apps made their lives convenient. Unfortunately, they had to walk twenty blocks, and the taxis just happened to not be available because of rush hour.) The night had ended with Padmé and Obi-Wan needing to stop at a pharmacy because the blisters had gotten too bad, and they had taken turns bemoaning terrible colleagues and the overpopulated city. ("We're terrible at complaining," Padmé had said after a while. She had bought them ice-cold water bottles, and they had been cooling their cheeks against them while sitting on a park bench. "We should do this more.")</p><p>Obi-Wan texted back a quick response—<em>looking forward to it</em>—and got another alert, this time from—</p><p>He had missed a call from Korkie.</p><p>Obi-Wan's heart jumped. He pulled up his voice messages, found the one left by his son. He still had other voice messages collected over the years, all of which he knew would get progressively quieter and shorter if he went from the oldest to most recent. (How "<em>I miss you</em>" can turn so quickly to radio silence.)</p><p>Korkie hadn't called Obi-Wan for months now.</p><p>Obi-Wan hit the play button on the new voice message waiting for him now.</p><p>He waited for one second, then another. There weren't any sounds at first, just some shuffling. Obi-Wan frowned, putting up the volume just in case he might be missing—</p><p>And then he heard the sounds. Wet, mouthy sounds and heavy breathing.</p><p>And then Obi-Wan was scrambling to delete the message, and then he tossed his phone to the backseat, trying very, very hard to erase the last ten seconds of his existence.</p><p>Clearly, Korkie hadn't meant to call him, and clearly, Korkie had been busy with someone.</p><p>Obi-Wan pushed his hands up to his face, tried again to erase whatever he had heard. He knew that, really, he shouldn't be <em>that </em>surprised. His son was sixteen years old, and it was perfectly <em>natural </em>for him to have first kisses and first…whatever else, and Obi-Wan knew that Satine and himself had sat Korkie down once, told him very calmly of what to expect and to use the necessary precautions and et cetera, but <em>still</em>, his son was <em>sixteen</em>—</p><p>Obi-Wan wondered if Satine knew. And Obi-Wan wondered if he <em>wanted </em>Satine to already know, because if Satine already knew, then that meant that—</p><p>Well, Korkie wasn't talking to Obi-Wan anyways, so he shouldn't be surprised—</p><p>Obi-Wan lowered his head against the wheel.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i figured i should clarify the characters' ages-in this fic, anakin's about twenty-four/twenty-five, padme would be twenty-five (i know that in the canon, they're five years apart, but for the sake of the story, i'm tweaking around that age gap, along with the age gap between anakin and ahsoka too-ahsoka would be about twenty-two in this fic). korkie is sixteen, and obi-Wan's in his mid-late thirties. (there might have been some confusion about korkie's age, especially about this one line about korkie sitting in on one of obi's classes. my aunt and uncle were professors, and they used to offer that i come sit in their classes when i was in high school, so that's where that line came from).</p><p>classes are about to start for me, so i might be a little bit busy, but i don't plan to ghost this story any time soon. and of course, i'll notify everyone if there's a disruption in updates. (if things get truly busy, this story might be updated every two weeks instead of once a week, but as of now, i'm going to try my best to keep up with weekly updates.) kudos/comments/subscriptions are greatly appreciated!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin found Ahsoka back in the apartment when he arrived. She was sitting on the couch, laptop on her thighs and eyes narrowed at the too-bright screen, and she didn’t seem to notice Anakin walking in until he closed the door and turned on the lights.</p><p>Ahsoka blinked, sitting up. “You’re back.”</p><p>“And so are you,” Anakin said. “Are we just saying obvious things now?” He picked up a couch pillow, passed it to Ahsoka. “Use this instead of your legs.”</p><p>Ahsoka scowled but she took the pillow. “You know, <em>I </em>leave you alone when <em>you </em>work.”</p><p>“Okay, Grumpy,” Anakin replied, swinging down to the couch. He leaned over to Ahsoka’s shoulder and looked at the screen. “How’s the assignment going?”</p><p>“Not going at all,” Ahsoka muttered. She punched at the keyboard a few more times, slammed the laptop shut. “I’m starving.”</p><p>“What’re you feeling?” Anakin asked, digging out his phone. “We could order Thai again—”</p><p>“Delivery takes too long,” Ahsoka said. “And they always get lost here anyways.” She plucked Anakin’s phone from his hand and, shooting him a semi-guilty smile, she asked, “Can you make me something? <em>Please? </em>I’ll even do the dishes after and everything.”</p><p>“You <em>better </em>do the dishes after,” Anakin replied. But still, just to let Ahsoka know that he didn’t really mind, he flicked Ahsoka on the shoulder and got up. “Anything you’re in the mood for?”</p><p>“Something with not a lot of dishes.”</p><p>“Very funny.” Anakin opened the cupboards, tugged out a sack of tortillas that was apparently supposed to expire in a few days. He turned back around to Ahsoka, who had opened up her laptop again. But judging by the expression on her face, she had moved on from her frustrating assignment to something less stressful. “Quesadillas or burritos?”</p><p>“Burritos,” Ahsoka replied without looking up. “Do you want a movie or a show?”</p><p>“Depends on what kind of movie and what kind of show,” Anakin replied, digging out the beans from the back of the pantry. He set the can down on the counter, opened the fridge. Took out the ground beef, cheese. He shook the bag and decided there was enough left in there for tonight. Anakin made mental note to go to the grocery store later. Or maybe he could get Ahsoka to do it. He couldn’t remember if it was his or her turn, anyways.</p><p>“Well, I was feeling superhero movies,” Ahsoka said. “And uh…I don’t know. Something funny for a show.”</p><p>“We’re not watching <em>The Office </em>again,” Anakin said, digging out the spices from the cupboard.</p><p>“What’s wrong with <em>The Office</em>?”</p><p>“We’ve watched that show <em>way </em>too many times.”</p><p>“Huh. Okay,” Ahsoka said, clicking through what Anakin figured were shows on her laptop. “I thought you liked it though.”</p><p>“I <em>do</em>, but not enough to watch it ten times a year—”</p><p>“We do <em>not </em>watch <em>The Office </em>ten times a year—”</p><p>“Fine, <em>eleven </em>times—”</p><p>“Okay, okay, so no <em>Office</em>. <em>The Good Place</em>?”</p><p>“Sure,” Anakin replied, setting the pans on the stovetop.</p><p>Ahsoka hummed, pleased. “I knew you’d say yes,” she said, and Anakin turned to find her hopping up from the couch. “You have <em>such </em>a crush on Chidi.”</p><p>“Who <em>doesn’t</em>?”</p><p>“No, but you <em>specifically</em>,” Ahsoka replied, making her way to the counter. She reached up for the cupboard and dragged out a bag of tortilla chips. Popping it open, she added, “It’s always the academic types with you.”</p><p>Anakin paused. He looked at Ahsoka, and she said quickly, “Like, you know. There was that one comp-sci TA, and then the anthropology grad, and the literature professor the other day…” She extracted a chip. “Just, you know. You’ve got a type. <em>A </em>type. Not talking about a <em>specific person</em>, not really—”</p><p><em>Oh</em>. Anakin knew where this was going, and he didn’t like where this was going at all—</p><p>They always danced around talking about Padmé, even when Anakin knew that they still phoned each other and everything—but still, Anakin would rather not, and he knew Ahsoka would rather not, and he knew Ahsoka was regretting saying anything at all, because she was speaking quicker now.</p><p>“You just dig nerds,” Ahsoka said. “Smart people. Not saying <em>you’re </em>not smart, because you <em>are </em>smart, but you always liked the bookish <em>type </em>of people—”</p><p>“I had sex with my lit professor.”</p><p>Ahsoka blinked. “What?”</p><p>“My literature professor,” Anakin replied, turning back around to the pans. He dumped the ground beef into one, stirred it around. “The guy from the other night. Found out in class yesterday that he also happens to be <em>my </em>professor.” He reached for the spices.</p><p>For a moment, the only sounds were the dull shakes of the spice containers and the sizzle of meat on the pan.</p><p>And then Ahsoka asked, “He’s <em>what</em>? You <em>what</em>? Did you—did <em>he</em>—”</p><p>“Relax,” Anakin said, scooting the meat around the pan. “We didn’t know, if that’s what you’re wondering. Pretty sure it was a nasty surprise for both of us, actually.”</p><p>Correction: it had <em>definitely </em>been a nasty surprise for both of them.</p><p>“<em>Think you can top me</em>?”</p><p>Anakin closed his eyes briefly. Out of <em>all </em>the things he could say—</p><p>“You have to drop that class,” Ahsoka said. “You have to—oh <em>God</em>…” She groaned, and when Anakin opened his eyes, he found her with hands pushed up to her face “That’s got to be breaking like…<em>so </em>many rules. <em>So </em>many rules.” She looked at Anakin. “You’re dropping it, right?”</p><p>“Can’t,” Anakin replied. “It’s my last requirement.” He pushed at the meat. “It’s fine,” he added after a beat of silence. “We talked about it after class. It was just a one-night stand—nothing serious. And everything’s graded blind, so it’s not like he can even give me preference or flunk me, if he ever felt like it.” Anakin didn’t think Obi-Wan would flunk him anyways. He didn’t seem like the type of person who liked to flunk students.</p><p>“Oh <em>God</em>…” Ahsoka shook her head. And then she paused. “Wait, you found out about this <em>yesterday?</em>” She punched Anakin surprisingly hard on the bicep. “Why didn’t you <em>tell </em>me?”</p><p>“You were busy with Trace,” Anakin said, shoving Ahsoka’s fist away. “Pass me the beans.”</p><p>Ahsoka huffed, but she passed Anakin the can. He unscrewed the top, dumped the beans in the other pan. In the meantime, he pushed the meat onto a plate, started wiping the pan clean. “Tortillas.”</p><p>Ahsoka pushed the bag towards Anakin. After a few quiet moments, Ahsoka muttered, “Do we have salsa?”</p><p>“In the fridge. Sour cream too.”</p><p>Ahsoka pushed herself off the counter, and Anakin heard the fridge door open, close a bit louder than he was pretty sure would have been considered normal. “Careful with that,” he said, tossing Ahsoka a quick look over his shoulder. “You don’t want to break the door.”</p><p>“You’d fix it anyways,” Ahsoka said, pushing the salsa and the sour cream onto the counter. She reached for the bag of tortilla chips, stuck a chip under Anakin’s mouth.</p><p>“Thanks,” Anakin said, bending down to grab it with his teeth.</p><p>They stood like that for a while: Ahsoka alternating between eating and passing Anakin chips as he assembled the rest of the burritos. He pressed the tortillas flat against the pan, dumped on good amounts of both refried beans and meat, cheese. “Plates.”</p><p>Ahsoka dutifully dragged out the plates and set them on the counter. Anakin set the burritos on each plate and turned off the heat on the stove.</p><p>Without needing to say anything else, Ahsoka grabbed the plates and walked into the living room. Anakin took the sour cream and the salsa and followed her to the couch. They both sat down, and Ahsoka wordlessly set a plate on Anakin’s lap. They both popped open the sour cream and salsa containers (Anakin, the salsa and Ahsoka, the sour cream), and then they were both leaning back as Ahsoka’s laptop played the opening scene of <em>The Good Place</em>.</p><p>“<em>Welcome</em>,” Ahsoka read. “<em>Everything is fine!</em>”</p><p>“Imagine if you actually went there though,” Anakin said, leaning back against the couch. “And those were the first words you saw.”</p><p>“See, that’s why I don’t get why it takes the characters so long to figure things out,” Ahsoka said, shaking her head. “If I died and <em>those </em>were the first words I saw, I would have been suspicious <em>right </em>away.”</p><p>“As if,” Anakin said. “I would have figured it out first.”</p><p>Ahsoka only snorted into her burrito.</p><p>They got halfway through the episode before Ahsoka finally said, “So you’re <em>really </em>sure there’s no other way you can get out of this mess?”</p><p>“Pretty sure,” Anakin replied. He glanced over at Ahsoka. “It’s just for a semester,” he said. “And it’s a lecture class. It’s not even like I really <em>have </em>to participate, except in discussion sections. And I might just be placed with the TA.”</p><p>“But you don’t know that for sure.”</p><p>“It’ll be fine,” Anakin said, turning back around to the laptop. (“<em>I just don’t like being dishonest</em>,” Chidi was saying earnestly. “<em>And I can’t advise you to be dishonest either</em>.”)</p><p>Ahsoka sighed. “I have a bad feeling about this.”</p><p>“And I have a neutral feeling about this,” Anakin replied. He nudged Ahsoka on the shoulder. “Everything is going to be fine.”</p><p>Ahsoka snapped her fingers at Anakin. “See?” she said. “See, I just said, if I saw those words, I’d be suspicious right away.”</p><p>“But you’re not seeing those words, you’re <em>hearing </em>them,” Anakin replied. He batted Ahsoka’s hand away from his face. He got sour cream smeared over her fingers, and she scowled, wiping her hand on a napkin. “And,” he added, “<em>The Good Place </em>and my life are two <em>significantly </em>different things. For one, I’m not dead.”</p><p>“You’re hiding a great big secret, your professor-slash-one-night-stand is holding a great big secret…” Ahsoka gestured to the laptop. “Seems like they’re pretty similar.”</p><p>“See, that’s the thing though,” Anakin said. “It was just a one-time thing. It’s not like we’re <em>dating</em>.”</p><p>“Did you want to?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Date him at all.”</p><p>“I already told you before,” Anakin said, taking a bite out of his burrito. “Wasn’t interested.”</p><p>“But that was <em>before </em>you found out he was your professor.”</p><p>Anakin stared at Ahsoka. “You think I’d want to date him <em>because </em>he’s my professor?” he asked incredulously.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Ahsoka said, sounding just as surprised and uncomfortable with the idea. “But people do and <em>want </em>to do crazy things when there’s a twist to these kinds of situations, you know?”</p><p>“<em>These kinds of situations</em>—” Anakin huffed, turning back around to the laptop. “I can’t believe you think I would <em>want </em>to—”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ahsoka said quickly. “That came out wrong.”</p><p>“Yeah, no fucking <em>duh</em>,” Anakin muttered.</p><p>They were quiet for another few moments. (On the laptop screen, Eleanor pulled back her curtains to see a huge ladybug and men and women in yellow-blue-striped prison uniforms run around the lawn.)</p><p>“I really am sorry,” Ahsoka said. “I didn’t…”</p><p>“I know.” Anakin sighed, dropped his head back down against the couch. “I get it. Trust me. I <em>do</em>.”</p><p>“I’m just…” Ahsoka’s voice drifted. “It’s kind of a bad situation to be in.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>Another pause. And then: “how did he take it?”</p><p>Anakin tried to think. “He didn’t give anything away in the lecture hall,” he said. He saw grey-blue eyes widen just a fraction of an inch, and then Obi-Wan turning away, walking down the rest of the hall. The shuffle of notes against a lectern, a small smile tossed out at the rest of the class while Anakin shrank in his seat because <em>fuck</em>, just earlier that morning, Anakin had been the one waking up in Obi-Wan’s bed. He had been the one running his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair, and Anakin had the bad feeling that if he slipped off Obi-Wan’s shirt again, he would find the spot where he bit down on Obi-Wan’s shoulder.</p><p>And then earlier today—</p><p>Anakin shouldn’t have even talked to him. He should have walked <em>straight past </em>and just ignored him, gone straight to the bus stop.</p><p>But he had to open his stupid, big mouth, and they had to <em>talk</em>, and Anakin had thought their conversation was going relatively smoothly, and he had been thinking that <em>okay, see this is possible—you can talk to your ex-one-night-stand without things being awkward</em>, but then he had to say <em>that</em>—</p><p>“Actually, I think he’s taking it better than me,” Anakin muttered.</p><p>Ahsoka lifted her brows. “What’s <em>that </em>supposed to mean?”</p><p>Anakin contemplated telling Ahsoka the incident earlier today. Decided against that, because he didn’t need to give Ahsoka any more reasons to agonize over the situation for him. She had enough worries on her own plate, what with her own academics and…well, Anakin felt bad. She was practically his little sister—and God knew that Ahsoka probably knew more about Anakin’s life than was probably healthy.</p><p>“It’s supposed to mean that he’s being professional about it,” Anakin said, reaching over for a napkin. He tossed a look at Ahsoka over his shoulder. “As he should, right?”</p><p>Ahsoka pressed her lips together. “I guess,” she replied. She took another bite from her burrito and leaned forward to skip the intro of the next episode.</p><p>They continued watching the episode until Anakin said, “But anyways—how was your date with Trace? Good anniversary?”</p><p>“Are we really changing topics?”</p><p>“Yup,” Anakin replied. He nudged Ahsoka on the shoulder again. “I told you,” he said. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. So now we’re changing topics.”</p><p>Ahsoka looked like she was ready to argue, but then she looked back down at her plate. Bit down on her bottom lip.</p><p>Anakin frowned. “Did something happen?”</p><p>“<em>Something </em>happened,” Ahsoka replied.</p><p>Anakin watched Ahsoka tug off an extra part of the tortilla.</p><p>“What happened?” he asked. He angled himself towards her, bringing a knee up on the edge of the couch. “Did you two…” Anakin tried to think of the last time he had seen Ahsoka with her girlfriend. They had <em>seemed </em>happy, holding hands as they worked on something. And Anakin liked Trace. She was smart and funny and looked at Ahsoka like she was the brightest light in the room. And Anakin was pretty sure Ahsoka <em>really </em>liked Trace, because he had seen the way her eyes and smile and really…just her whole <em>self </em>soften whenever they were together.</p><p>“We’re fine,” Ahsoka said at last. “More than fine, actually. We’re just—um.” She looked at Anakin briefly, looked back down at her plate.</p><p>“Ahsoka?”</p><p>“We’re thinking about moving in together,” Ahsoka said.</p><p>Anakin blinked. “Oh.”</p><p>Then: “When?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Maybe early next year?”</p><p>Another pause. “That’s pretty soon.”</p><p>“I know.” Ahsoka’s voice was quiet. “I’ve started looking around for people who’re looking for a new place, though. So I can help you find a new roommate pretty easily.” Anakin felt her eyes fix on him. “Are you…”</p><p>“I’m happy for you,” Anakin said. And he meant it. Mostly. He made his lips turn upwards as he turned to look at Ahsoka. “That’s great for you guys. A whole new step. Wow.”</p><p>But Ahsoka didn’t seem entirely convinced. Which meant that Anakin had to try harder.</p><p>“I <em>mean </em>it,” he said, and he set down his plate on the coffee table. Stood up, walked into the kitchen. “This is great. Congratulations.” He opened the freezer, snagged out ice cream. He took out two bowls, dumped equal amounts of ice cream into both. He walked back into the living room, passed Ahsoka a bowl. “Calls for a celebration.”</p><p>Ahsoka gave Anakin a halfhearted smile. “I might change my mind, you know,” she said, digging around the ice cream with her spoon. “I mean, we’ve only been seeing each other for a <em>year</em>—it’s not really a big deal—”</p><p>“It <em>is </em>a big deal,” Anakin said, gesturing to Ahsoka with his spoon. “A whole year. And college years are like dog years—so really, you guys have been together for longer.”</p><p>“I don’t think that’s how it works.”</p><p>“It is. How it works,” Anakin replied, flashing Ahsoka what he hoped was a light grin. “I would know.”</p><p>Ahsoka paused.</p><p>Anakin took that as an opportunity to nod to the laptop screen. “Let’s watch the whole season,” he said. “Just the whole thing.”</p><p>“We can’t watch the whole season in one night,” Ahsoka said, turning around to the laptop.</p><p>“Why not? It’ll only take, like, three hours. Do you think we can watch all of season two, too?”</p><p>“Anakin.”</p><p>“We could even finish this whole show in, like, a day—”</p><p>“Anakin.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Ahsoka gave Anakin a sad look.</p><p><em>Don’t look at me like that</em>, Anakin thought.</p><p>“Are you…okay?” she asked.</p><p>Anakin blinked. And then he looked back at the laptop screen. “Fine,” he said. He flashed Ahsoka a grin. “Don’t worry about me.”</p><p>--</p><p>And Anakin <em>was </em>fine for the next few days. For the next two weeks.</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded to him a few times after class, and Anakin wound up being in Cody’s discussion section, so that was fine. Anakin didn’t attempt to make small talk with Obi-Wan whenever he saw him on campus. (But one day Obi-Wan walked in wearing a stupid waistcoat to class, and Anakin spent the lecture furiously looking down at his notebook because it wasn’t <em>fair </em>that Obi-Wan had to look like <em>that</em>—who even <em>wore </em>waistcoats anymore <em>anyways</em>?)</p><p>And Anakin’s other classes were going well. Rex turned out to be a good studying partner. He was serious and steady when it came to their work, but he laughed at Anakin’s jokes, which was nice. And they played maybe more Frisbee than Anakin ever thought was socially acceptable.</p><p>Which was what they were doing right now: throwing a Frisbee around, this time just Rex and Anakin.</p><p>“You know,” Anakin said, snatching the Frisbee out of the air, “I’m pretty sure I didn’t even play Frisbee as an undergrad.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>“So,” Anakin said, tossing the Frisbee back at Rex, “you’re turning me into an undergrad.”</p><p>“Is that so bad?”</p><p>Anakin huffed out what he figured could pass off as a laugh. What he didn’t mention was that his undergrad years were fine and then spiraled into something else.</p><p>“What’s that for?” Rex asked, nodding at Anakin.</p><p>“Nothing,” Anakin replied, catching the Frisbee. “Just that I’m glad I’m not in undergrad.”</p><p>Rex grinned as Anakin tossed the Frisbee. He stumbled back a half-step—Anakin had thrown the Frisbee a yard too far by accident, and while Rex fumbled for the Frisbee, Anakin took that time to stretch out his arms, look around the lawn.</p><p>He saw students, mostly. Students stretched out on blankets or on their backpacks as they read books or worked away on their laptops. Professors talking to each other, talking to students. A blue-shirted food worker stepping out to talk out on the phone.</p><p>Anakin stretched his arm over his head, heard and felt the crack.</p><p>And then he saw her.</p><p>At first, Anakin thought that it couldn’t be her—her hair was shorter than the last time Anakin had seen it. Shorter, wavier instead of curly at the edges.</p><p>But it was her—Anakin could recognize that gait anywhere, the confident stride and the shoulders thrown casually back and the lightest swing of her arms.</p><p>And then Anakin saw her wave to someone that wasn’t him.</p><p>He turned and saw Obi-Wan standing a few feet away. He lifted a hand and waved back, and Anakin only had enough time to think, <em>they know each other? </em>before turning around—</p><p>And getting hit on the face with a Frisbee.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i'm now starting my new semester, so my life might get busier, but i promise i'll keep up with updates! :) </p><p>comments &amp; subscriptions &amp; kudos are great!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Obi-Wan started off the morning in a much more chaotic fashion than he would have liked. He somehow forgot to turn on his alarm last night, which almost never happened, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Obi-Wan was a light sleeper and therefore felt the sun coming in almost immediately, he was sure he would have slept for longer. Which was mildly alarming—but Obi-Wan had stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping over the sheets at the time. A rushed shower, a grab at some clothes, and a dash out the door that brought him to campus really only two minutes later than he normally would have come in (and he normally came in nearly fifteen minutes earlier than he actually needed to be on campus, anyways), but still, the sudden break in his schedule was enough to make Obi-Wan feel like he was walking around with shoes on the wrong feet.</p><p>Which was why the rest of the morning was ridiculously disorienting: Obi-Wan couldn’t start his laptop at first, and he spent a good five minutes popping the battery in and out before the stupid thing decided it was willing to cooperate with him. And then he nearly spilled tea all over one of the other faculty members—<em>nearly</em>, Obi-Wan at least managed to catch himself before anything truly horrific could happen. And then he locked himself out of his office, which was embarrassing, to say the least.</p><p>So Obi-Wan himself had been looking forward to seeing Padmé again—and almost instantly, he was able to spot her quick gait through the campus. She wasn’t wearing her official work clothes, just a pair of jeans and a shirt, a loose blazer that told Obi-Wan that she must <em>really </em>be relaxed if she wasn’t expecting any last minute work calls or anything of that kind.</p><p>She lifted a hand now and waved, her smile just as warm and as bright as Obi-Wan remembered.</p><p>Obi-Wan lifted a hand in response and waved. He managed a smile of his own, and readjusting his bag at his shoulder, he started down to meet her at the halfway point on the street when he heard a loud <em>thunk</em>, and then lots of swearing—</p><p>Both Obi-Wan and Padmé looked to the side, where the noise had come from, and there, sprawled on the grass, Obi-Wan saw Anakin pressing a hand to his face. Standing above him was Cody’s brother, Obi-Wan remembered. Rex.</p><p>“You alright?” Rex was asking. “Why didn’t you—”</p><p>“I’m fine,” Anakin was saying thickly. “I’m fine, I just—” He slipped his hand from his face, and Obi-Wan saw the red. “Shit—um—” And then he looked up, and Obi-Wan saw Anakin’s eyes grow wide as he registered his audience. “<em>Um</em>—”</p><p>“Anakin.”</p><p>Obi-Wan was surprised that both Padmé and he had spoken in unison.</p><p>He looked at Padmé. There was a strange look on her face: her lips were slightly parted in surprise, her eyebrows slightly drawn together. Eyes blinking, as though trying to adjust to some new brightness. Then Padmé looked at Obi-Wan. “You…know him?”</p><p>“A student of mine,” Obi-Wan replied. He was wondering asking the same of Padmé—the two clearly knew each other, judging by Padmé’s odd expression and Anakin’s—</p><p>Well, Obi-Wan wasn’t sure how else to describe Anakin’s expression other than it looked like Anakin desperately, desperately wanted to be anywhere but there. He stood up and took a half-step back, nearly falling right into Rex, who, to his credit, didn’t move away. Obi-Wan noticed Rex take Anakin’s arm to steady him, a gesture that Obi-Wan decided was sweet. And then he wondered if Anakin and Rex were—</p><p>“Your nose,” Obi-Wan said abruptly. He opened his bag, tugged out a packet of tissues. Held it out for Anakin.</p><p>“Thanks.” Anakin’s face was red, although whether from the actual nosebleed or from the situation, Obi-Wan wasn’t sure. He took the tissues and ripped open the package after a few painfully quiet seconds. “Um—”</p><p>“You can keep those,” Obi-Wan said.</p><p>“Right. I wasn’t sure if—” The rest of Anakin’s words were lost to halfhearted mumbling, and then he was ripping out a tissue with his eyes still downcast.</p><p>Another strange silence.</p><p>And then Padmé’s voice: “Anakin—it’s nice to see you again.”</p><p>Anakin looked up quickly. His lips were pressed together, the color in his cheeks brighter and redder than they had been just a second ago. “Yeah. I mean—it’s nice to see you again too.” He cleared his throat. “Um—you’re here? In town? In the area?”</p><p>Obi-Wan caught Rex’s eyes purely for no other reason than he needed to look at something that wasn’t Anakin’s steadily reddening face.</p><p>Rex caught Obi-Wan looking at him and pressed his lips together: a silent nod of agreement to the fact that Obi-Wan wasn’t the only one who was wondering if perhaps this exchange had gone on a beat too long.</p><p>“I—yes,” Padmé replied. “I’m in the area. I’m visiting. For some…non-work things.”</p><p>“That’s cool. That’s great.” Obi-Wan noticed Anakin twisting at the packet of tissues. He was going to rip them all out, Obi-Wan knew—at least, he was going to rip them all out if Anakin twisted any harder than he was now.</p><p>“And you?” Padmé asked. “How are you?”</p><p>“Great,” Anakin replied. “I’m doing…great.” He cleared his throat, tugged out the last tissue. He didn’t seem to notice. Obi-Wan waited and watched as that realization dawned on Anakin a second too late, and then Anakin was growing redder, his hand crumpling up the now-empty packet. “I should…you two should—you two know each other?” Those last words sounded little more than a quick exhale of breath. Or a deflating balloon.</p><p>“We’re friends,” Obi-Wan heard himself saying, and he was surprised at how quickly he said those words, how <em>defensive </em>he sounded, and he wondered (and hoped) that he only sounded defensive in his head, and that his voice was a little steadier than the thoughts rushing through his head. “Just friends.”</p><p>“Obi-Wan and I met at a conference a little while ago,” Padmé said, shooting Obi-Wan a sidelong glance. A smile. “We were just catching up.”</p><p>Another second of silence ticked past, and then Padmé cleared her throat. “We should catch up some time.” Her voice was quiet, gentle, and Obi-Wan didn’t miss the sudden surprise that flashed across Anakin’s face. Surprise, and then something else, and Anakin took another quick step backwards, bumping into Rex again.</p><p>Rex, this time, moved his hand up to Anakin’s shoulder. Another steadying gesture.</p><p><em>Stop looking</em>, Obi-Wan thought.</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin said. “Maybe. I’m a little busy though.” He blindly reached around Rex, patted Rex’s shoulder. “You know. Studying and stuff. Right, Rex?”</p><p>“Right,” Rex agreed. He nodded at Padmé. “Nice to meet you. I’m a friend.”</p><p><em>A friend</em>—</p><p>“Oh,” Padmé said, and for a moment, she seemed surprised. And then, shaking her head, she said, “Of course—wouldn’t want to keep you from your studies.” She paused, and then she added, “Is Ahsoka still…”</p><p>“She’s still around,” Anakin said. “Does she know that you’re in—”</p><p>“I wouldn’t tell her and not tell you,” Padmé said, smiling a little. “That’s not exactly fair.”</p><p>“Right.” Anakin looked pained. “That’s not…right.” He took another small step backwards, taking Rex with him. “Um—Professor Kenobi, about the next assignment—”</p><p>“Paper’s due next week,” Obi-Wan said automatically.</p><p>“Right, thanks—I just—” Anakin suddenly dropped down, picked up his backpack. “You two should—Rex and I should—”</p><p>“We’re leaving,” Rex said quickly.</p><p>“Yeah—that. Um, Rex, where’s my…” Anakin turned around quickly, his eyes moving across the grass for something Obi-Wan figured wouldn’t be there anyways.</p><p>“Phone’s in your pocket,” Rex said.</p><p>“Right—right, that’s where—”</p><p>“Maybe next time, then?” Padmé asked.</p><p>Anakin looked up. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Maybe. I’ll—my number’s the same—or you should just call Ahsoka, since she’s better at picking up, anyways. Or maybe don’t call Ahsoka—she’s busy with her thesis and moving and—” He stopped abruptly. “Never mind. Just call when you want. Rex, we should—”</p><p>“We’re leaving,” Rex repeated, and this time, he sounded a little firmer, a little more desperate, and Obi-Wan couldn’t really blame him.</p><p>Anakin nodded quickly. And then he lifted up a hand at Padmé and Obi-Wan, stumbled a few more steps back, and then both Anakin and Rex were turning around and walking quickly through the lawn.</p><p>Obi-Wan saw Rex turn his head to say something to Anakin, and for a second, he thought he heard a laugh, and he decided that he was glad that there was someone to make Anakin laugh after that whole awkward debacle, but—</p><p>“Well, I hope he stays away from Frisbees,” Obi-Wan said, re-shouldering his bag. He turned to Padmé. “That’s the second time this semester.”</p><p>Padmé smiled, but Obi-Wan noticed that it didn’t quite reach her eyes.</p><p>--</p><p>They found themselves at a familiar lunch spot a few minutes later, one with warm tones and potted plants and a comfortable hubbub of chatter. The conversation was light at first: both of them commenting on the menu and the décor and asking each other if they had been to this place before (they both had, but they were both pretending that they didn’t know that. Padmé cracked first, and for a second, the two could only laugh a little to themselves).</p><p>“So,” Padmé said now, resting her elbows on the table. Like everything else about the restaurant, the table was a warm wooden thing, with just enough nicks and marks that Obi-Wan figured were made on purpose for some artistic detail rather than anything else. “How are things?”</p><p>“Things are…” Obi-Wan pretended to be take some interest in cutting apart a piece of chicken. “Things have been eventful.” He looked up and smiled briefly. “But I suppose that comes with any semester. Getting busier, though I can’t complain.”</p><p>“No annoying students?”</p><p>“Not particularly,” Obi-Wan replied. He cut a little harder into his chicken and then paused, looking up at Padmé again. She was intent on her own food too, and though her expression was casual, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but think of the words exchanged only a little while ago.</p><p>“Were you…” Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Were you interested in learning about any student in particular?”</p><p>Now Padmé looked up quickly. “I—” She stopped short and then gave Obi-Wan a rueful smile.</p><p>Obi-Wan managed a smile back.</p><p>“Wouldn’t you be violating some kind of student-professor confidentiality agreement?” Padmé asked after a heartbeat. “I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble.”</p><p>“Oh, no, I certainly won’t be telling any secrets,” Obi-Wan replied as dryly as he could manage. “I don’t have a single idea who you could possibly be talking about.”</p><p>A small smile from Padmé, and then she was looking back down at her food. “And you’re not curious about us at all?” she asked, picking up her napkin.</p><p>“Whatever history there is between you two is strictly between you two,” Obi-Wan replied carefully. “I wouldn’t ask you to share anything that you—”</p><p>“No, it’s fine,” Padmé said hurriedly. “There’s nothing that—no. He’s just—he and I were—are—friends. Knew each other when we were kids. Grew up in the same neighborhood and everything.”</p><p>Obi-Wan thought of Anakin’s red face and the strange tension between the two. He had a strange feeling that there was more to the story, but seeing Padmé’s determined look down at her plate, Obi-Wan decided that he wouldn’t ask.</p><p>“How are things otherwise?” he asked instead. “Work?”</p><p>“Fine,” Padmé said, looking relieved at the subject change. “Really fine. Mostly fine.” She cleared her throat. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about switching firms. Might be doing some more work over here, actually.”</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked. “Really,” he said.</p><p>“This is my home state, after all,” Padmé replied with another brief smile of hers. “Figured that it was time to go back home.” She cut into her food. “And besides,” she added. “New York’s a little…rushed. Lots of rushing.”</p><p>“The city that never sleeps,” Obi-Wan intoned.</p><p>“Well, I’ve decided that I like my sleep,” Padmé replied.</p><p>“An excellent decision,” Obi-Wan said, lifting up his water glass.</p><p>Padmé picked up her own glass in mock cheer. “Thank you, thank you,” she said, and taking a sip from her glass, she said, “But anyways—that’s all there is from my front. How are…other things? How are <em>you</em>?”</p><p>“I’ve been doing well,” Obi-Wan replied. “Busy.” He thought about the awkward calls between Satine and Korkie and himself. Obi-Wan hadn’t dared bring up the accidental call to Korkie. He knew that if his son wanted to talk about it, then he would—and Korkie probably knew that he had called Obi-Wan accidentally anyways. Obi-Wan knew that Korkie could check his outgoing calls…but the next time Obi-Wan had gotten to talk to Satine and Korkie, neither of them had mentioned anything, and Obi-Wan had the strange feeling that Korkie wasn’t going to bring anything up.</p><p>Actually, Korkie didn’t seem interested in bringing <em>anything </em>up. Their conversations didn’t seem to last longer than five or six minutes—which Obi-Wan supposed was improvement from the last few weeks, but still. The conversations were short, clipped, and Korkie always seemed to be running late to meet with some friends. And Obi-Wan would have been glad for that—he <em>was </em>glad that Korkie had friends, but still, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but brace himself for another surprise call or voice message.</p><p>And Satine—Satine didn’t mention anything of Korkie’s personal life to Obi-Wan either. And Obi-Wan told himself that he couldn’t blame her for that. He couldn’t blame Korkie or Satine for any of this, really. There was no one <em>to </em>blame, but still—</p><p>Obi-Wan didn’t want to bring any of that up. He had still been married when he met Padmé—but if she noticed the absence of the ring on his finger, she didn’t say anything. And Obi-Wan was sure she noticed: smart woman like her, she would notice anything, but still. Obi-Wan appreciated the silence on the subject.</p><p>“Busy,” Padmé repeated. “Do you have a TA?”</p><p>“Yes,” Obi-Wan replied. “Cody. He’s wonderful. An extreme help.”</p><p>“That’s good,” Padmé said. “Wouldn’t want you facing a whole class—two classes—without some backup.”</p><p>Obi-Wan managed a laugh. “Cody is certainly all the backup I need,” he replied.</p><p>Their conversation eased from that point on. To Padmé’s noisy neighbors (new parents, so perhaps that couldn’t be helped) to Obi-Wan’s research (frustrating and long, but that couldn’t be helped either), and then they were both walking out of the restaurant and heading through the streets as though they had all the time in the world. When in reality, they both knew that Obi-Wan would have to go back to campus, and Obi-Wan was sure that Padmé probably had more on her mind than she was letting on.</p><p>But for that short while, Obi-Wan supposed that it was nice to pretend that they both didn’t have something on their minds. Obi-Wan let their conversation wander into happy little nothings until they both checked the time, and then there were exchanged smiles and—</p><p>“I’ll still be in the area for a while,” Padmé said. “Before I pack up and move all my things from New York. So if you ever free up more time in your schedule—”</p><p>“I’ll be sure to give you a call,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>“You better.”</p><p>“A threat from Padmé Amidala—I’ll be sure to take heed of it,” Obi-Wan said.</p><p>There was another smile at that: and then Obi-Wan snagged a taxi for Padmé and waved her off. “I mean it though,” she said before she got into the taxi.</p><p>“I know you do,” Obi-Wan replied. He closed the door after her and waved as the taxi pulled away.</p><p>And then he decided it was time for him to go back to campus, too.</p><p>--</p><p>Obi-Wan reached his office in time to catch the new text messages waiting on his phone, all of them from Satine, all of them apologetic.</p><p><em>Korkie says that he’s got too many assignments this week</em>, <em>so he doesn’t think he can make it this weekend. </em></p><p>
  <em>He says he’ll try for next weekend. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ll make sure he stays on top of his assignments this time. </em>
</p><p>Obi-Wan tucked his phone back into his pocket and grabbed hold of his keys. He tried to find his office key in the midst of the others—mailbox, apartment, car—eventually found his office key and slipped it into the lock. Opened the door, fumbled for the lights.</p><p>Obi-Wan tucked the rest of his keys back into his pocket and swung the door shut.</p><p>Only he hadn’t tugged his other hand away on time, and the door closed right on his fingers.</p><p>Obi-Wan let out a half-cry, half-shout, let his head drop at the pain lancing through his hand. He bit down on his lip to keep himself from making any more sound and tugged his hand back, noting the already reddening fingers. He supposed it could be worse—he could have broken his hand, but he never liked slamming doors anyways.</p><p><em>Well</em>, he thought, massaging his hand. He supposed given the track of the day, something like that was bound to happen.</p><p>Obi-Wan pushed himself out the door. He could have had worse, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t at least try to get some feeling back into his fingers.</p><p>Obi-Wan walked down to the bathroom, turned the tap to cold water. He was relieved to find that his fingers were, actually, capable of moving, and for a few seconds, he could just stand over the sink and wait.</p><p>He looked at his knuckles. He hadn’t managed to close the door that far into his hand, but still, there was a little scrape from where the door had hit them. Obi-Wan rubbed a thumb over his knuckles. A little bit of pain, but nothing major. Obi-Wan decided to be thankful for that.</p><p>He could have had much, much worse.</p><p>Obi-Wan turned off the tap and, drying off his hand with a paper towel, walked out of the bathroom.</p><p>He walked back up to his office and tugged out his phone again. Satine’s messages were still waiting for him.</p><p><em>Next weekend is fine</em>, he texted back.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>so maybe anakin and obi-wan are both clumsy fools? </p><p>comments, kudos, and subscriptions are wonderful!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin looked up as Rex set a box of tissues on the desk.</p><p>“Thanks,” he said, yanking a few of them out. The worst of the nosebleed had steadied only a few minutes ago, but still, Anakin was grateful for the gesture. He wiped at his nose again, looked down at the faintest smear of blood against the tissue. Wonderful.</p><p>“You’re welcome,” Rex replied, sitting at the desk across from Anakin. He flipped open his notebook and his laptop. “If I give you my notebook, you have to promise you won’t get blood all over it.”</p><p>“Very funny,” Anakin said. “But I don’t need your notebook right now. So you’re saved.”</p><p>A short laugh from Rex, one that Anakin managed to join. Just barely. His head still hurt, and his hands felt strangely numb, but Anakin didn’t think it had anything to do with the fact that he got hit in the face with a Frisbee (again. It was stupid, Anakin thought. He usually had fast reflexes. Usually). He flipped open his own notebook and tried to make sense of the equations in front of him. He realized he had been working on the same problem for at least a full minute before realizing that this wasn’t even the right page of the assignment. The right assignment was on page…</p><p>Anakin looked at his laptop screen, scrolled down to the proper chapter and the proper problems. He managed to go through two of the problems before realizing that he had somehow crumpled his tissue into gross, blood-stained wisps.</p><p>Anakin stood up to toss the tissue(s) out and headed to the bathroom. He turned on the tap and spent a good twenty seconds washing his hands, spent another twenty just running his hands under the cold water until they were even number than before, which he didn’t think was possible.</p><p>Anakin walked back out to his desk and looked up at Rex.</p><p>His friend was looking intently down at his own laptop and notebook. He hadn’t said much since the incident at the lawn except for an occasional “how’s your nose” and “how’s your head”. And Anakin appreciated that, because he wasn’t quite sure if he really wanted to say much.</p><p>But still, as Anakin looked back down at his notebook, he found that he couldn’t focus on anything <em>except </em>what had happened at the lawn.</p><p>Padmé. She was here. She <em>had </em>been here. For the first time in a whole year, she was here, and she had looked familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Her hair had been shorter, and she had been wearing a new blazer, but Anakin was pretty sure he had seen her wear those jeans and that shirt before. And he thought that was so <em>stupid </em>that he knew exactly what kind of <em>jeans </em>she wore, because all jeans were supposed to look the same anyways, but he knew because he knew and because he knew her.</p><p>Anakin wondered if Ahsoka knew yet.</p><p>Padmé had said that she hadn’t called Ahsoka—and Anakin could believe her about that. She wasn’t a liar. That wasn’t the reason why they had—that wasn’t the reason at <em>all</em>. If anything, it might have been the exact <em>opposite </em>reason about why she had left, but still—</p><p>Anakin wondered if Ahsoka knew.</p><p>He wanted to call Ahsoka now, just to let it all out, because at least Ahsoka would have an idea about what was going through Anakin’s head right now, but at the same time, Ahsoka had to be in class right now. Or she could be working on her thesis. Or she could be with her girlfriend. Or all three. (<em>That’s stupid, she can’t be doing all three</em>—)</p><p>“You want a pencil?”</p><p>Anakin blinked. “What?”</p><p>Rex nodded down at Anakin’s hand, and he looked down to find that his mechanical pencil had run out of graphite.</p><p>“Oh. It’s fine, I’ve got another.” Anakin scrounged around his backpack, tugged out a pen instead. He paused and decided that it was fine. He twisted off the cap and looked at the next problem.</p><p>The ink bled instantly through the page, and when Anakin lifted his hand, there was a smear of blue where there was supposed to be none. That would be the professor’s problem later—that was what he deserved for having such messy handwriting, anyways.</p><p>Anakin and Rex worked in silence for a little while longer—mostly silence. Anakin’s knee kept bouncing up and down, and he kept wrinkling the corner page of his notebook, but if Rex was bothered by the sound, he didn’t say anything.</p><p>But another fifteen minutes passed, and then Rex asked, “Everything okay in there?”</p><p>“Yeah, of course,” Anakin said automatically, looking up. “Everything’s okay in here.” He gestured towards himself. “You see this? I’m the absolute definition of everything being okay.”</p><p>“Ever considered going into acting, Skywalker?”</p><p>“Very funny.” Anakin looked down at his notebook and, scribbling down the starting equations for the next problem, he added, “Everything’s okay though.”</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p>Another moment of silence passed, and then with a sigh, Anakin let his pen clatter to the desk. “I mean, I’m as okay as I can be after seeing my ex-fiancée. Like, <em>I </em>think I’m doing pretty okay after seeing my ex-fiancée, even though I know I might not look it.” He gestured towards himself again. “Trust me, I think I could be looking a <em>lot </em>worse.”</p><p>Rex blinked at Anakin. “Your ex…”</p><p>“Fiancée,” Anakin clarified. “Girlfriend of…” He pretended to count the years, even though he knew the numbers—<em>all </em>the numbers: years of being friends, years of dancing around the idea of dating, years of actually dating—better than he knew anything else. “Nine years. Started when we were sixteen. Cute, right? Could have had a ten-year anniversary and everything. Bummer.”</p><p>Rex blinked again. And Anakin saw his eyebrows furrow for a second, and he knew what was about to come next—but Anakin wasn’t about to let that happen.</p><p>“It’s fine though,” Anakin said. “I think I handled it well, all things considered. She’s great. Really great person. I mean, you saw her. She’s great.” Anakin was aware of how often he had said the same word in a single sentence, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.</p><p>“Anyways,” Anakin said. “I’m doing fine. I’m doing okay. And like I said, I think I handled it well, all things considered.”</p><p>Rex gave Anakin a skeptical look.</p><p>“What?” Anakin asked.</p><p>Rex nodded down to Anakin’s notebook. “I think you might actually need a pencil,” he said. And then he set a pencil down on Anakin’s desk.</p><p>Anakin looked down at his notebook and swore. He hadn’t realized that the ink had completely bled over all the pages.</p><p>--</p><p>Anakin got a phone call while he was waiting in line for coffee. (Everyone only ever seemed to get coffee at the library café at the same time. Anakin hated the coffee, because he was pretty sure it was decaf, but Ahsoka always told him it was just because he drank too much coffee for his own good. Padmé would try to tell him to drink less coffee, but that never worked, because Anakin would point out that she probably drank <em>just </em>as much coffee as he did, if not even <em>more </em>than him, but then she would counter that she needed it because she was studying for the LSATs and probably going to have to work twenty hours a day, seven days a week, so really, she was just gearing herself up for her new life—and Anakin would shut her up by kissing her and tell her that she could study later—<em>study me instead</em>, he’d say, and she’d roll her eyes, and Ahsoka would pretend to gag at them, but at least they’d be laughing then.)</p><p>Anakin hadn’t meant to think of Padmé then. Really, he hadn’t meant to at all. He had been really good at not thinking about Padmé when he was waiting in line for coffee at this stupid café, but he thought of her, and Anakin was pretty sure that the world was laughing at him, because when he tugged his phone out, he knew who was waiting on the other end even before he answered the call.</p><p>And Anakin hated himself for it, but he picked up the call anyways.</p><p>“You changed your number,” Anakin said, scuffing his shoe against the ground.</p><p>“I did,” Padmé replied. “There was an issue with my old phone—I gave Ahsoka my new number a few months ago, so I figured that if you…” She didn’t bother finishing the sentence.</p><p>Anakin closed his eyes. He didn’t really want her to finish that sentence, anyways.</p><p>“Anyways,” Padmé said. “It was nice seeing you earlier today. Is your nose okay?”</p><p>“Fine,” Anakin replied, thinking of the dried blood he had to clean off his desk. And the wisps of tissue that were probably still sitting on top of the misprinted papers and old tests and quizzes sitting in the library’s trash can.</p><p>“That’s good,” Padmé said. “It looked bad.”</p><p>“Yeah, well.” Anakin scuffed his shoe against the ground again. It squeaked a little, and a student shot a glare at Anakin. He glared back.</p><p>There was a pause, and then Padmé said, “Do you remember that time you started bleeding all over the diving board? Back when we were kids?”</p><p>They had been fifteen at the time. Padmé had been lingering on the grass the whole day, reading through her assigned summer books. And Anakin had been grumpy that afternoon, because he just wanted them both to have some fun, but <em>no</em>, <em>Anakin, summer homework is serious, and we’re going to be sophomores</em>—</p><p>So Anakin had marched up to the diving board, and he had shouted, <em>Padmé, look at this! </em>and he had just gotten a glimpse of Padmé’s surprised face when he jumped up and then came crashing down at the wrong angle, and he remembered hearing Padmé’s cry and the lifeguard’s frantic whistle a heartbeat later.</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin replied now.</p><p>“<em>God</em>, remember all that blood?”</p><p>“Yup.”</p><p>“Pretty sure I saw more blood today than I did back then.”</p><p>Anakin knew that was an exaggeration, and he knew that Padmé only ever exaggerated when she was trying to make him laugh. She didn’t do exaggerations otherwise. Everything was factual with her otherwise. <em>No, Anakin, it’s not like a million laws, it’s really just—</em></p><p>This was bad. This was really, really bad. Just having Padmé in his ear again was bringing back hundreds of thousands (<em>millions</em>) of memories whirling back, and Anakin tightened his grip on the phone. The line moved up, but Anakin didn’t.</p><p>He stepped away from the line, earning himself a grateful look from the person behind him, but he didn’t pay it any mind.</p><p>“Anakin?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he said. “More blood. Gotcha.”</p><p>There was another pause.</p><p>And then, Padmé’s voice: “How are you? How have you been?”</p><p>“Good. Fine. Really fine.” Anakin made his way back to his desk. He found a note there, one in Rex’s blocky handwriting: <em>had to go to class. </em></p><p>Anakin figured that was probably a good thing. He wasn’t sure if he wanted anyone to really see the look on his face right now.</p><p>Anakin fumbled for his notebooks, shoved them in his backpack.</p><p>“That’s good,” Padmé said. Another pause, and then, “It’s been forever, hasn’t it?”</p><p>“Yup.”</p><p>“I was wondering if you’d like to catch up, then?”</p><p>Anakin paused. “Catch up?”</p><p>“There’s some nice coffee shops open around here,” Padmé said. “We could go try one out. Just get coffee, talk. It might be nice.”</p><p>Anakin closed his eyes briefly. Leaned over his bag, his hand still frozen over his notebook. Somehow, miraculously, he found his voice. “Right.”</p><p>“Right?” And just like that, Padmé sounded hopeful. Happy. “It’ll be fun. Are you free this weekend?”</p><p><em>No</em>.</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin replied.</p><p><em>Stupid. Stupidstupidstupidstupid</em>—</p><p>“Great!” Padmé sounded relieved. “Does two work? Or really, any time that afternoon. I’m free that whole afternoon. Whatever works for you!”</p><p>
  <em>None of this works for me. </em>
</p><p>“Two works,” Anakin replied.</p><p>“Amazing,” Padmé said. Anakin could practically see her beaming. <em>Amazing</em>. “I’ll see you then.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“I’m really glad that—”</p><p>“I gotta go.” Of course, <em>now </em>Anakin’s voice could actually work—</p><p>Anakin didn’t wait for Padmé’s response. He ended the call and slumped over his bag. He didn’t care if there might be people giving him funny little looks now—let them stare and watch. <em>Ladies and gentlemen, here’s exhibit A of a person who clearly does not have things together. Make sure to take notes, because this will be on your quiz next week</em>.</p><p>Anakin slowly unwound himself from his crouched position. Settled his backpack over his shoulders and walked out the library.</p><p>He still had his phone in his hand, he realized a moment later.</p><p>So he called the only other person he knew would at least semi-understand what was going on.</p><p>--</p><p>“Oh, Anakin.”</p><p>“Did you know? Did she—”</p><p>“No. She didn’t tell me. I mean, I had a feeling that she might be coming around soon, because she was mentioning some stuff being busy and some stuff about her firm, but…I didn’t know <em>this </em>soon.”</p><p>Anakin closed his eyes. “Yeah. I didn’t think she’d come back <em>ever</em>.”</p><p>Ahsoka’s voice was quiet. “Are you okay?”</p><p>“I’m okay.”</p><p>“You don’t sound okay.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, she did,” Anakin said. “She sounded totally okay.”</p><p>There was some silence on the other side of the phone.</p><p>And then, Ahsoka said, “Are you going to meet with her?”</p><p>“I said I would.”</p><p>“Do you want to?”</p><p>“I don’t know. She asked me.”</p><p>“But do you <em>want </em>to?”</p><p>
  <em>Yes. No. </em>
</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>A sad sound from Ahsoka. Anakin was too tired to even feel annoyed at that. “I was scared of that.”</p><p>--</p><p>Someone cleared a throat.</p><p>Anakin opened his eyes. For a disorienting second, he didn’t know where he was, but then he looked up at the purple-pink sky and the three branches and the street lamps and, at the center of it all, Obi-Wan.</p><p>“I don’t suppose you were planning on camping here?” Obi-Wan asked, shifting his bag over his shoulder.</p><p>Anakin took a moment too long to answer. He knew that it was a moment too long because he could actually hear other things around him: faint laughter of some students coming out of the campus center, someone running past. A bird.</p><p>“And you haven’t?” Anakin asked at last, sitting up. He brushed the grass and dirt off his back. “It’s actually comfier than it looks.” He looked up at Obi-Wan. “Anything I can do to help you, Professor?”</p><p>Right. That was a good way to start a conversation. Or end a conversation. Have a conversation, period.</p><p>“Not particularly,” Obi-Wan replied. “Although I figured you wouldn’t want to sleep here. Unless, of course, that was your plan.” He adjusted the strap of his bag again.</p><p>“Of course it was.” But Anakin picked up his backpack and stood up. He swiped at the back of his shirt again before swinging his bag around his shoulders. He looked at Obi-Wan. “And what are you still doing here?”</p><p>“Besides keeping students from sleeping on the lawn?”</p><p>“Besides that.”</p><p>“Work,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>“No rest for the wicked?”</p><p>A corner of Obi-Wan’s lips twitched. “No rest for the weary.”</p><p>“And if you’re wicked <em>and </em>weary?”</p><p>“Then,” Obi-Wan said, gesturing down the sidewalk. “I suppose you’re damned.”</p><p><em>Already there</em>, Anakin thought.</p><p>--</p><p>Anakin wasn’t really sure when they started walking together, but they did. Anakin to the bus stop, Obi-Wan to the parking lot.</p><p>At one point, Anakin noticed the scabs on Obi-Wan’s knuckles. Before he could think better of it, he asked what happened.</p><p>For a second, Obi-Wan looked confused, and then, looking down at his hand, he gave Anakin a wry, almost embarrassed smile. “An accident,” he said, dropping his hand into his pocket. “You’re not the only one prone to them.” He looked at Anakin. “And how’s the…”</p><p>“Fine,” Anakin replied.</p><p>“Should I start expecting more of these accidents in the near future?”</p><p><em>Only when I’m distracted</em>, Anakin thought.</p><p>But he forced out a laugh. A huff of a laugh. “No more accidents from here on out.”</p><p>“That’s good. I’m starting to think you have a curse with Frisbees.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Anakin replied. “Or maybe it’s just you.”</p><p>An incredulous look. “Really,” Obi-Wan said. “Do tell.”</p><p>“I’ll have you know that my hand-eye coordination is <em>perfect</em>,” Anakin replied. “The only coincidence so far has been that I only ever get hit in the head when <em>you </em>show up. Face it, Professor,” he said, tilting his head back up to the darkened sky, “you’re my bad luck charm.”</p><p>“Oh dear.” Obi-Wan’s voice was flat.</p><p>“Yup. What<em>ever</em> are we going to do, Professor?”</p><p>“Well, given that you’re still in my class, I suppose you’ll only have to tolerate the bad luck for the rest of the semester. Let me know if anything changes afterwards.” There was a small silence shared between the two of them, and Obi-Wan added, “Or maybe don’t. Feel free to enjoy your good luck afterwards without any notification of the sort.”</p><p>“Right. ‘Course.”</p><p>They settled back into silence. Anakin rolled his head around his shoulders, wiped a hand through his hair. He wasn’t surprised to find some grass there, and he wiped his hand on his jeans.</p><p>“You have…”</p><p>“Where?”</p><p>Anakin felt a hand just barely brush against the space above his ear.</p><p>“Thanks.” Anakin wiped at the grass, watched it flutter to the ground.</p><p>“You’re welcome.”</p><p>Anakin looked to Obi-Wan again. He was looking straight ahead.</p><p>And then Anakin asked, “How was…your day? Earlier?”</p><p>“Fine,” Obi-Wan replied. He looked at Anakin briefly. “Nice to catch up with a friend.”</p><p><em>Friend</em>.</p><p>Anakin tried to picture Obi-Wan and Padmé standing next to each other at the lawn. That image wasn’t too hard to come up with. It came back quick and full of color and left with Anakin’s chest feeling tight.</p><p>They were both quiet, and then Obi-Wan asked, “And you know Padmé—”</p><p>“Also friends,” Anakin said.</p><p><em>Not really. Not friends. </em>But Anakin wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell Obi-Wan more than that.</p><p>“I see.” Obi-Wan looked ahead again. And then, after a moment, he said, “If you’re worried about—”</p><p>“I’m not worried about anything,” Anakin said quickly.</p><p>“—the paper—”</p><p>Heat prickled at the back of Anakin’s neck. “Right. No, I’m fine. The paper’s fine.”</p><p>“That’s…good.”</p><p>They were near the intersection—right before Anakin would go to the bus stop and Obi-Wan the parking lot.</p><p>They both stopped.</p><p>And then, Obi-Wan said, “But either way, if there’s anything you’re worried about—don’t.”</p><p>Anakin turned around just in time to see Obi-Wan walk away to the parking lot.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>consider subscribing and/or leaving a kudos or comment on your way out!</p><p>**next update will be on monday, 09/28</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ahsoka was already waiting when Anakin walked through the door. He wasn’t sure if he had wanted her to be there—actually, Anakin realized, he was starting to get a little too used to seeing Ahsoka already waiting for him in the apartment. And that probably had to stop. </p><p>“Do you do this with Trace, too?” Anakin asked, swinging his backpack to the ground. “Wait around in her living room until she comes home?” </p><p>“No,” Ahsoka replied. “I wait for Trace in her bedroom.” </p><p>Anakin managed a smirk, but it didn’t feel real. He walked into the kitchen, swung open the fridge door. They hadn’t gone grocery shopping. Half a carton of eggs was still lying around, some milk. Anakin sloshed it around. Less than a third full. He <em> really </em>should have gone grocery shopping. </p><p>Then again, he hadn’t had any time to go grocery shopping, in between classes and exams and that stupid paper he had to write for Obi-Wan’s class...he didn’t even know what he was going to write about yet. Something from <em> one </em> of the books they had read so far, and probably related to <em> some </em>theorist about...Anakin didn’t even know anymore. He figured it had to be in his notes somewhere. </p><p>“So,” Ahsoka said. </p><p>“So,” Anakin replied. He shut the fridge door. “Gonna get milk.” </p><p>“Now?” </p><p>“Now,” Anakin replied. He pushed his feet back into his shoes. “Do you want anything? We might have to do pizza. Frozen pizza.” </p><p>“I’m fine with frozen pizza,” Ahsoka replied. She pushed herself off the couch. “But Anakin—” </p><p>“Actual pizza, though,” Anakin said, reaching into his jacket pocket for the wallet that he already knew was there. “Not that stupid cauliflower crust shit.” </p><p>“That was <em> one </em>time…” </p><p>“And once was enough for me,” Anakin replied. He opened the door. “Think we also need eggs. And probably...I don’t know. That store sells frozen vegetables, right? We probably need <em> something </em>green…” </p><p>“Anakin.” </p><p>“Ahsoka,” Anakin replied, mimicking Ahsoka’s tone. “I’m fine.” </p><p>Ahsoka frowned. “You’re wearing the <em> I’m-fine-but-really-not </em>look again.” </p><p>Anakin blinked. “There’s a look?” </p><p>At that, Ahsoka’s lips twitched just the faintest bit, but in another flash, she was back to frowning. “You really can’t miss it.” </p><p>“Great,” Anakin said. “Anything else I should be aware of?” </p><p>“Your shoelace is untied,” Ahsoka replied. She craned her head back and said, “And there’s grass in your hair.” </p><p>Anakin reached up and patted at the back of his head. He did that a few times and turned around to Ahsoka. “Better?” </p><p>“Hold still,” Ahsoka said, and she reached up. Anakin felt her fingers brush through his hair in one, two quick swipes, and then, a moment later, there was a small, sharp pain at the back of his head. </p><p>“<em>Hey</em>,” Anakin said, batting Ahsoka’s hand away. “Don’t <em> flick </em>me.” </p><p>“That’s what you get for deflecting,” Ahsoka replied loftily, wiping a hand on her pants leg. She took a step out of the door and gestured out to the apartment hallway. Somewhere, another pair of students were blasting music that Anakin didn’t recognize. “So are we going to talk about this?” </p><p>Anakin paused. And then he walked out of the door. He heard Ahsoka’s little sigh, followed by the click of the door. A moment later, there was the rapid procession of Ahsoka’s sneakered feet, and then she appeared at Anakin’s side. Her hands swung at her sides, and once or twice, they knocked against Anakin. He wasn’t quite sure if that was on purpose or not: Anakin turned to her eventually, and Ahsoka lifted her eyebrows. </p><p>They didn’t say anything though, not until they were in the little convenience store by their apartment. The fluorescent lights flickered a few times, and the cashier shouted a greeting from what looked like a broken soda dispenser. </p><p>And even though Anakin had said that they were only there for quick things: eggs, milk, frozen pizza, he found themselves lazily traversing around the birthday card aisle. Ahsoka picked up one particular card: one with a big rabbit with a cartoonish smile and comically large ideas. <em> Hoppy birthday</em>, the card read in pink letters.</p><p>“Please tell me that when my birthday comes around, you’ll get me a card with a better pun,” Anakin said. </p><p>“No,” Ahsoka said, picking up another card. She turned it over for Anakin: there was a doodled cake with too many lit candles. <em> You’re at the age where your birthday is now a fire hazard</em>, read the front. “I’ll just get you this one instead.” </p><p>“Very funny, Snips,” Anakin replied, plucking the card out of Ahsoka’s hands. “But if my birthday’s a fire hazard, then yours won’t be far behind.” </p><p>“Nah,” Ahsoka replied loftily, taking the card back from Anakin. She stuck it back where she found it and, tilting her head at the array of cards, she added, “I’m too smart to not use candles anyways.” She took a step back, and then they were walking out of the aisle of birthday cards and instead to the cereal and bread aisle. Breakfast foods. Anakin was pretty sure they had plenty of that, but still, he waited as Ahsoka picked up a box of Froot Loops. She turned the box to Anakin. “Yes?” </p><p>“Are you going to eat it?” </p><p>“Probably not,” Ahsoka replied, setting the box back down. “Did you know that all Froot Loops taste the same?” </p><p>“I don’t believe that.” </p><p>“They <em> do</em>,” Ahsoka replied, sticking her hands in her pockets and examining a box of Cheerios. “Even the blue ones. I found out last week.” She tilted her head at the Raisin Bran. “Would you eat Cheerios or Raisin Bran for the rest of your life?” </p><p>“Only old people like Raisin Bran,” Anakin replied automatically. </p><p>“Should be perfect for you, then.” </p><p>Anakin rolled his eyes. </p><p>But Ahsoka grinned, and standing up, she shoved her hands back in her pockets. “So. Eggs? Milk?” </p><p>“You know,” Anakin said, following Ahsoka to the dairy section, “the <em> getting old </em>jokes don’t work anymore.” </p><p>“Really? I thought they were,” Ahsoka replied. She opened the fridge door. “Hold it.” </p><p>Anakin held the door open and pretended to close it back on Ahsoka. She let out a small sound, kicked at Anakin’s shin. Anakin huffed, tried to duck away from her foot, but she still caught him in the leg anyways. “<em>Shit, Ahsoka</em>—” </p><p>“Your fault. I told you to <em> hold it</em>—” </p><p>They both started laughing, and then a woman down near the grab-and-go section shot them an annoyed look. </p><p>“Sorry, sorry,” Ahsoka said, trodding a little bit on Anakin’s foot. Anakin got her back eventually by poking her in the ribs when the woman looked away. Ahsoka slapped away Anakin’s hand and started down the frozen entree section. “Pizzas?” </p><p>Anakin grabbed the first ones he saw: pepperoni, two of each. He piled the pizza on Ahsoka’s arms, ignoring the little protest she gave. They made their way to the self-checkout eventually, but not before they stopped at the card section again. </p><p>After a while, Ahsoka said, “All the <em> condolences </em>cards are stupid.” </p><p>Anakin agreed. </p><p>--</p><p>“So…” </p><p>“Did she call you?” </p><p>Ahsoka pushed away her pizza box. “No,” she replied. “I don’t think she will. At least, not until you guys talk.” She paused. “And you’re seeing her…” </p><p>“Weekend.” </p><p>“Right.” </p><p>They were both quiet. </p><p>“I feel like an idiot sometimes,” Anakin said to the coffee table. “Am I an idiot?” </p><p>“Only sometimes.” Ahsoka’s tone was light, but Anakin could tell that she didn’t really know how to respond, either. Anakin just nodded at the coffee table. </p><p>“Did she say why she was back?” Ahsoka asked at last. </p><p>“No,” Anakin replied. “I might find out tomorrow, though.” He shifted against the couch. “Who knows. Maybe she’s just here for a little while.” </p><p>“Is that what you want?” </p><p>
  <em> Yes. No.  </em>
</p><p>“I don’t know,” Anakin replied. “Refer to before. I feel like an idiot.” </p><p>They were quiet again. </p><p>And then Ahsoka asked, “Did she just…” </p><p>“She came to campus,” Anakin replied. He tugged at the corner of a couch cushion, and every other memory of the day came rushing back, and for a moment, Anakin wanted nothing more than to bury his head in the couch cushion and sleep for a hundred years. Or maybe at least sleep through tomorrow. Maybe that would send a message. </p><p>And then Anakin realized he didn’t want to send that message. He wondered if he should want to, anyways. People were supposed to be angry and bitter about their ex-somethings, right? </p><p>“You didn’t even hear the best part,” Anakin said after a while. “She was meeting with Obi-Wan.” </p><p>For a moment, Ahsoka looked confused, and then Anakin realized that he hadn’t actually told Ahsoka his professor’s name. </p><p>“The lit professor,” Anakin clarified. </p><p>Ahsoka’s face cleared, and then she blinked. “<em> Oh</em>. Were they…” </p><p>“No,” Anakin replied. “At least, I don’t think so.” </p><p><em> Just friends</em>, Obi-Wan had said. </p><p><em> If you’re worried about anything </em>…</p><p>But Obi-Wan had been talking about the paper. Not about ex-something things. Probably not, at least. Because if Obi-Wan <em> was</em>—well, Anakin didn’t even <em> have </em> to be worried about anything, did he? It didn’t even really <em> matter </em>if Obi-Wan was seeing anyone— </p><p>“Do you think he…does <em> she</em>—” </p><p>Anakin let out a small snort. “I don’t think Padmé knows anything about the good old professor and me, if that’s what you’re asking.” He didn’t think Obi-Wan would tell her anything like that—and if Padmé <em> had </em> figured something out, Anakin knew he probably would have gotten told off by now. (<em>Told off</em>. Because that was what Padmé used to and <em> would </em>do, right before or after Anakin would do something stupid like try impressing her at the diving board or yanking her out of the principal’s office or talking her into meeting him at the empty parking lot behind their school.) </p><p>Padmé, in essence, always seemed to have a better plan than Anakin when it came to these kinds of things. These kinds of things meaning the things that people were <em> supposed </em> to do. Like not try to do stupid fancy tricks on the diving board or yanking people out of the principal’s office or head to the parking lot in the back of the school just for the sake of something to do in a neighborhood Anakin couldn’t always properly call <em> home</em>.) </p><p>“Anakin?” </p><p>“Yeah.” </p><p>“What are you going to do when you see her?”</p><p>“What am I supposed to do?” Anakin asked, turning to look at Ahsoka. “What do you think she expects me to do?” </p><p>Ahsoka bit down on her lip. “I think she might expect you to have moved on.” </p><p>“Yeah.” Anakin turned back around to the coffee table. “That’s what I thought, too.” </p><p>Ahsoka scooted the pizza boxes away and stretched out her legs so that her foot would be knocking against Anakin’s. “What do <em> you </em>actually think?” she asked. “About her? Do you still…” Ahsoka didn’t bother finishing what she was going to say, and Anakin didn’t need her to, because he had been wondering the same thing for some time now. </p><p>“I just didn’t think she’d be around,” Anakin replied. He wished he had something in his hands to bounce against the wall. He’d sometimes do that, catch whatever ball he had bounced against the back of the school. Or he’d make a paper airplane and throw it through the cafeteria or the classroom or the lecture hall. He’d watch it land perfectly in front of Padmé and watch as she unfolded the airplane with a small smile on her face. </p><p>“And what about the rest?” </p><p>“The rest?” </p><p>Ahsoka gave Anakin a wary look. </p><p><em> The rest</em>. </p><p>“I’m asking,” Ahsoka said. “Do you think you’ve actually moved on?” </p><p>Anakin dropped his head against the couch cushion. “It’s not that simple.” </p><p>He heard Ahsoka’s heavy sigh. “Yeah,” she muttered, leaning over to pick up the pizza boxes. “You can say that again.” </p><p>--</p><p>Anakin found himself standing in a coffee shop he had never been to before. The walls were whitewashed, and there were too many plants, and there were also too many items on the menu. Anakin hovered at the back of the coffee shop, trying to look like he was just reading over the too-many-names of drinks (most of which Anakin was pretty sure had to be completely made up, because there was <em> no </em> way a coffee could have <em> that </em>many vowels in the title), and he was considering just grabbing a table first when the door swung open—and with it, a gust of autumn wind and rain, and Anakin shifted to the side to avoid getting hit by anymore of the outside when he saw Obi-Wan brushing the rain out of his hair. </p><p><em> Just great,</em> Anakin thought, turning deliberately back to the menu board. <em> Great.  </em></p><p>He really was starting to get tired of themselves constantly running into each other like this. Out of all the coffee shops in the area—why <em> this </em>one—</p><p>Unless, Anakin thought wildly, Padmé had somehow invited Obi-Wan here <em> too</em>—</p><p>Anakin suddenly had the vivid image of himself sitting across Padmé and Obi-Wan, and he banished the thought instantly, because with his luck so far, the thought alone could very well make that very thing <em> real</em>—</p><p>Anakin didn’t have to turn his head to know that Obi-Wan was making his way to the back of the line now: right back to where Anakin was standing now. <em> Great, just great</em>—</p><p>Anakin turned to Obi-Wan. “Professor,” he said, tilting his head. </p><p>“Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied. He wasn’t wearing his usual messenger bag, Anakin noticed. But he was wearing a jacket that Anakin had seen him wear a few times before: a black peacoat, a grey sweater that made Obi-Wan’s eyes look a little lighter. “What are you doing here?” </p><p>“Can’t a guy get a coffee?” </p><p>“You’ve come here before?” </p><p>Anakin paused. “No,” he replied. “I’m just. Meeting someone. Padmé.” He didn’t really have to add that part, but it was too late: Anakin had said it, and now Obi-Wan nodded. </p><p>“I see,” Obi-Wan said. He turned to the menu. </p><p>The line shifted up. Anakin gestured in front of himself. “You go,” he said, stuffing his hand back in his pocket. “I don’t know what I want anyways.” </p><p>“Too much to choose from?” </p><p>“Something like that.” Anakin glanced at Obi-Wan. “Don’t suppose you can help me narrow down my choices?” </p><p>Obi-Wan made a noncommittal sound. “I can’t, I’m afraid,” he said. “I don’t care much for coffee.” </p><p>“Right,” Anakin replied, remembering. “Tea.” </p><p>“...yes.” Obi-Wan cleared his throat. </p><p>Anakin kept looking at the menu. The line moved up again, and Anakin waited one second, two before asking, “So what brings you here, Professor?” </p><p>“A meeting of my own,” Obi-Wan replied. </p><p><em> Oh</em>. </p><p>Anakin looked back up at the menu. “Anyone interesting?” </p><p>For a moment, Obi-Wan didn’t answer—and Anakin was wondering if maybe Obi-Wan just hadn’t heard him (the coffee machines <em> were </em>loud, as were the shouts of some of the baristas who were looking for people to pick up their orders). Anakin was debating whether or not to ask again when Obi-Wan replied, “Well, I would hope that my son counts as interesting.” </p><p><em> His son</em>. </p><p>Obi-Wan Kenobi had a son. </p><p><em> Right</em>, Anakin thought, suddenly remembering the articles he had found on the first day. Obi-Wan Kenobi had been married. Or at least had worn a ring, even though he hadn’t worn it the night they met. Or in the weeks afterwards, Anakin noticed. Or now. </p><p>Definitely divorced then. </p><p>And with a son. </p><p>Anakin wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or not. </p><p>And then he remembered that he shouldn’t feel relieved at <em> all</em>, because it shouldn’t matter if Obi-Wan was saying his son or a man or a woman or <em> anyone</em>. </p><p>“That counts as interesting,” Anakin replied. He focused on the name of one coffee drink. Still too many vowels, and also named after what Anakin was pretty sure was a city that had to be made up. “How old is he?” </p><p>“Sixteen.” </p><p>Anakin cast a sidelong glance at Obi-Wan. If his son was sixteen...Anakin did the math in his head. Obi-Wan couldn’t have been older than maybe his mid-twenties. </p><p>The line moved up again. </p><p>The door swung open, and Anakin turned instinctively, but the only person who came through was a battered-looking schoolgirl who was wiping the rain off her glasses. Anakin turned back around to the menu. </p><p>“The more...comfortable items are listed over there,” Obi-Wan said, gesturing to a board on the other side of the coffee shop. “In case you’re still trying to decide.” </p><p>“Thanks.” </p><p>“You’re welcome.” </p><p>Anakin looked over at the menu. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see other pedestrians trying to rush out of the way of the rain. He didn’t see Padmé yet, and for a bizarre second, Anakin wondered what would happen if she never showed up at all. And then Anakin realized he wasn’t even sure if he really wanted that at all. </p><p>Anakin finally found something that he semi-liked on the menu, and in just a few minutes, he was standing next to Obi-Wan again, this time waiting for his drink to come out. </p><p>“So,” Anakin said after a while. “Do you come here often?” </p><p>“Does it matter if I do?” </p><p>“Just trying to make small talk.” </p><p>“Clearly.” </p><p>The rain pattered against the window. </p><p>After a while, Obi-Wan replied, “I come here every once in a while. To get grading done.” </p><p>“You don’t do that stuff at home?” </p><p>“Believe it or not, professors require a change of scenery, too.” </p><p>“You’re right, Professor—I can’t believe it at all.” </p><p>Obi-Wan huffed out a short laugh. “I shouldn’t have bothered trying.” </p><p>“You really shouldn’t have.” Anakin glanced at Obi-Wan, and he was surprised to find that Obi-Wan was actually looking at him, too. </p><p>They both looked away as the barista called out their names. </p><p>And when Anakin picked up his too-hot cup of coffee, he heard the door open again. And this time, when he turned around, he found Padmé brushing the rain out of her hair and yet still looking completely unbothered by the fact that it was pouring outside. </p><p>And as though sensing that he was watching her, Padmé looked up and waved. A small wave, really nothing more than a flutter of her fingers, but a wave. </p><p>Anakin’s stomach twisted. </p><p><em> Okay, go</em>. </p><p>The door opened again, and this time, Anakin felt Obi-Wan turn beside him. (Feeling someone turn beside him was really just a matter of paying attention to the way the air moved. And apparently, Anakin could tell when Obi-Wan moved around him.) </p><p>Anakin lifted his eyes to see a young boy with a wave of auburn hair coming through the door. The boy turned around the coffee shop, and then he looked directly in Anakin’s direction. It took a moment for Anakin to realize that the boy wasn’t looking at <em> him</em>, but looking at the person next to him. </p><p>Anakin looked at Obi-Wan and saw the slight tightness on his face, and then the small smile. </p><p>Anakin had the bizarre feeling that Obi-Wan was thinking the same thing as himself. </p><p>
  <em> Okay, go.  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sorry for the late update, everyone! some real-life things blew up in my face recently, but i'm still at it here! (also for future reference, if there's ever a late update, i'll update the chapter notes before to announce when the next chapter can be expected.)</p><p>as always, comments, kudos, and subscriptions are greatly appreciated!</p><p>**next update will be Monday, Oct. 12!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Obi-Wan didn't know what to think of the situation now except that it was bordering on mildly awkward and mildly ridiculous, and it really shouldn't be—there was nothing <em>truly </em>ridiculous about the situation, and yet, Obi-Wan still felt as though he had been <em>caught </em>somehow...which again, didn't make any particular sense, because he wasn't doing anything wrong.</p><p>But still, as Obi-Wan lifted his hand to wave at Korkie, he again felt a tightness in his chest—the same tightness in his chest that he had felt all the times they had talked (or tried to talk) through a screen. Which Obi-Wan found partially silly. He knew how to talk to his own son without the medium of a screen.</p><p>Beside him, Obi-Wan heard a sharp intake of breath.</p><p>And then he found yet another familiar face in the coffee shop—Padmé Amidala was weaving between the tables, one hand brushing the rain out of her curls. But she was otherwise looking up, and for an instant, she looked a little surprised. And then her face relaxed, and she waved to Obi-Wan.</p><p>Obi-Wan waved back. He had meant the gesture as one just out of courtesy more than anything, but still, when he turned to look at Anakin, he had the bizarre feeling that maybe he should—<em>but why did he owe an explanation, he didn't owe an explanation</em>—</p><p>"Are you…"</p><p>"Yeah," Anakin replied. He fiddled with his coffee. "That's—just meeting—" He cleared his throat and nodded to Korkie, who was steadily making his way across the shop. "Is that…"</p><p>"My son," Obi-Wan said. He looked to Korkie now, who came to a slow stop in front of both of them. He was a little taller, Obi-Wan realized, although it couldn't be possible that Korkie could have grown since the last time he had seen him—or maybe it was possible. The doctor had predicted Korkie would hit another growth spurt in his late teens, and he was sixteen now, so did that mean Korkie was already in his growth spurt anyways?</p><p>"There you are," Obi-Wan said, hoping his voice was as light as he was trying to make it.</p><p>"Here I am," Korkie intoned. He stuck his hands in his pockets and flicked his eyes over to Anakin. His brow furrowed, and then he looked back at Obi-Wan. "Is…"</p><p>"I was just leaving," Anakin said quickly. He turned to Obi-Wan. "I'll see you later, Prof."</p><p>"Yes," Obi-Wan managed. "Class, then."</p><p>"Class." Anakin looked back at Korkie and smiled briefly.</p><p>Korkie, to Obi-Wan's relief, managed a half smile back, although it was a confused one. Then Anakin was leaving, and Obi-Wan watched him for a moment—just long enough to watch Anakin meet Padmé, who had selected a table. Obi-Wan saw Anakin bow his head for a second, and then Padmé stood up from the table. The two stood apart for a moment, and Obi-Wan decided that was enough watching for now.</p><p>He turned to Korkie. "What would you like?" he asked, gesturing to the line.</p><p>"I don't really—"</p><p>"I hear the hot cocoa's good."</p><p>"I really <em>don't</em>—"</p><p>But a few minutes later, Obi-Wan and Korkie were sitting across from each other with matching paper cups. Korkie took a few sips before he started fiddling with the cardboard sleeve.</p><p>"Hot?" Obi-Wan asked after a little while.</p><p>"Yeah." Korkie pushed the cup some ways away from himself.</p><p>They sat in silence. Outside, the rain was still coming down.</p><p>"How are you?" Obi-Wan asked after a little while. "School, friends…" Obi-Wan thought of the voice message left on his phone and quickly pushed the thought out of his mind.</p><p>"Fine," Korkie replied, fiddling with the cardboard sleeve again. "Busy."</p><p>"I heard," Obi-Wan said. "You must be working hard."</p><p>Korkie lifted his shoulders. "It's fine," he said again.</p><p>They were quiet for a little while longer. The rain seemed to beat harder on the windows, and for a moment, the coffee shop quieted as everyone briefly turned to look at the onslaught. The door opened, and a few laughing teenagers came stumbling inside, wringing out their clothes and shaking the water off umbrellas. For a moment, Obi-Wan wondered if Korkie might recognize them—but Korkie just tugged at the cardboard sleeve again.</p><p>"Korkie—"</p><p>"Do you know where the bathroom is?"</p><p>Obi-Wan paused.</p><p>"Back there," he said after a little while, gesturing down the length of the coffee shop. "You'll have to ask one of the workers for the passcode."</p><p>"Thanks." Korkie pushed himself away without so much as a second glance. Obi-Wan watched him go ask one of the baristas for the passcode—saw Korkie's polite little smile before he was continuing on his way.</p><p>Obi-Wan turned back around to Korkie's abandoned cup. The cardboard sleeve was a little bit ripped near the top. Obi-Wan reached out, smoothed out the little tear before dropping his hand on the table. He pushed aside his own cup, not caring if his own drink got cold. Might as well.</p><p>He glanced out the window. The rain hadn't let up at all, and now, he could see that there was almost no one out on the street. Everyone had gone scurrying home or into the nearest building. Some cars flew past though, sent up small sprays of water.</p><p>Obi-Wan turned away from the window and found himself looking around the coffee shop again. He hadn't been lying to Anakin when he'd mentioned how he had come to this place to get grading done. Only the last time he had been here, there were different plants, and there were other baristas then, too, and Obi-Wan had actually still been wearing his wedding ring.</p><p>Obi-Wan looked down at his hand now, where the wedding band had once been. There was just the slightest ring of paler skin around his finger, and now Obi-Wan slipped his hand to his lap, took his cup with the other. For a brief, disorienting moment, Obi-Wan wondered if maybe he should have just worn his ring—but no, that was silly, and that wasn't fair—not to Korkie or himself. Obi-Wan didn't think Satine wore her wedding ring anymore either, and he wouldn't expect her to. They had both surely come to that realization themselves.</p><p>Obi-Wan looked up at the lights of the coffee shop. Those lights had changed too—they were swapped out for something a little warmer than what they had been since the last time had been here, which he supposed was a good thing, but all the same, he couldn't quite bring himself to appreciate them, not even in this dreary weather. He dropped his head down again, and despite himself, he found himself looking across the coffee shop instead.</p><p>He supposed he should have been embarrassed at how quickly he was able to spot Anakin—but he spotted Anakin too easily, found him sitting oddly straight-backed across from Padmé, who was speaking animatedly. She was smiling, Obi-Wan could tell from his own spot near the window, but the slightest wrinkle between her brows told him that there was something more to this conversation. Obi-Wan couldn't see Anakin's expression—but he saw Anakin shift a little against his seat, saw Anakin's head turn away briefly.</p><p>Padmé started to say something, but then she stopped.</p><p>Obi-Wan looked away before he could see any more. He forced himself to look out the window again. Whatever Anakin and Padmé were going through had to be their own business and their own business alone—</p><p>But Obi-Wan saw Anakin's stunned face float before his eyes again, and he saw Padmé's sad little smile, and Obi-Wan had the strange feeling that both of them probably had a history that went farther beyond just being childhood friends. Which was fine, and something that Obi-Wan most certainly should not be involved or invested in, because that was all levels of inappropriate.</p><p>Obi-Wan cleared his throat, reached for his cup.</p><p>His tea had, in fact, gone cold.</p><p>--</p><p>When Korkie came out of the bathroom, he was texting someone.</p><p>"Sorry," he said, sitting back down at the table.</p><p>"A friend?" Obi-Wan asked.</p><p>"Yeah." Korkie tucked his phone in his pocket, but a moment later, there was another buzz. Obi-Wan watched Korkie tug out his phone, glance down at it. Korkie looked back up at Obi-Wan expectantly.</p><p>"Seems like someone's rather intent on getting your attention," Obi-Wan said. He meant his tone to be light. He pushed aside his tea. He had managed down a few more sips before deciding that he couldn't stand how cold it was. "Don't let me keep you."</p><p>"Thanks," Korkie said. Obi-Wan waited as Korkie tapped out a message, and then he was putting his phone away again.</p><p>"Plans?"</p><p>"Maybe," Korkie replied. He looked at Obi-Wan and, after a moment, he said, "Actually, I might...see them later today."</p><p>Obi-Wan paused.</p><p>Korkie kept looking at him, waiting for an answer that Obi-Wan wasn't sure he was meant to give or not.</p><p>"I thought we would have a little more time," Obi-Wan said at last.</p><p>"We are," Korkie said. "We will." He scraped his nail against something on the table. A slight nick, Obi-Wan realized. Probably from some other customer who had hit something too hard against the surface. "But I've just got this test coming up, and Amis needs a study partner anyways, so…"</p><p>Before Korkie could finish, there was a sudden crash—and both Obi-Wan and Korkie turned to see Anakin kneeling down on the ground, picking up pieces of a small plate. There was a woman nearby, apologizing profusely for what Obi-Wan guessed had to be the broken plate, but Obi-Wan saw Anakin lift his head, say something that made the older woman smile a little. Padmé, too, had taken up a napkin and was wiping at the floor, and judging by the slightest smile on her face, she was partaking in the conversation too.</p><p>And then Obi-Wan watched Padmé say something to Anakin, and Anakin ducked his head a little lower. Obi-Wan wasn't sure what his reaction was, but he decided it was best he not know, because once again: this was clearly a private matter, and Obi-Wan wasn't about to allow himself to get more invested in Anakin Skywalker's life than was already deemed necessary.</p><p>"Nice of them," Korkie commented.</p><p>"Yes," Obi-Wan replied automatically, reaching for his cold tea. He looked at Korkie. "Any other updates, then? You haven't told me too much about other things."</p><p>Korkie lifted a shoulder. "Not much to tell," he replied.</p><p>Obi-Wan tried for a smile. "That hardly sounds like the Korkie I know." And that much was true—the Korkie Obi-Wan knew had always been the one asking questions, plucking books from his study or looking through old photo albums and asking for the story behind each weathered photograph. Then again, the Korkie Obi-Wan knew had also been little younger and had also been able to look him in the eye.</p><p>"Yeah, well. Kokrie tugged at his coffee sleeve again. This time, it actually ripped all the way, and they both fell silent.</p><p>Obi-Wan waited one moment, and then another, and then he said, "Korkie—"</p><p>"Dad—"</p><p>Obi-Wan stopped short. "Yes?"</p><p>Korkie pushed aside his hot chocolate. He hadn't drunk too much from it, Obi-Wan noticed and realized now. "I should get going," Korkie said. "Just...exam. And...other things." He sat up. "I'll just see you another time, yeah?"</p><p>"I—" Obi-Wan started, stopped because Korkie was looking at him with that same expectant look. And then, quietly, Obi-Wan said, "I hope you'll do well on your exam, then."</p><p>"I will." Korkie gave Obi-Wan a tight-lipped smile, one that Obi-Wan realized that he himself had probably given one too many times, particularly in the last days. It was oddly chilling seeing it on his son's face now, but all the same, Obi-Wan nodded and attempted a smile of his own. It felt unnatural.</p><p>Obi-Wan started to stand up. "I can drive you to—"</p><p>"No," Korkie said quickly.</p><p>"It really isn't any trouble—"</p><p>"Dad, it's—" Korkie blew out a breath. "It's fine. Really. Amis said he was a few minutes away, anyways."</p><p><em>Already</em>, Obi-Wan couldn't help but note.</p><p>And yet, he could just nod. "Well, then—"</p><p>"I'll see you later," Korkie said.</p><p>"Later," Obi-Wan agreed.</p><p>Korkie flashed Obi-Wan another tight-lipped smile, and then he was walking out of the coffee shop with a jerk of his jacket and a few long strides. Obi-Wan watched Korkie duck out of the shop, lift his jacket over his head, and then run down the street to meet a car. He saw a blond teenager step out—Amis. Obi-Wan had gotten to know Amis over the years, of course, and Amis turned to wave at Obi-Wan.</p><p>Obi-Wan managed a wave back, and then he saw Korkie say something. Amis turned, grinned, and then the two were hopping back in the car. Obi-Wan could see Korkie shaking off water from his hair, and then the two of them were driving off.</p><p>Obi-Wan let out a breath.</p><p>He looked around the coffee shop again: the same people were still looking at books or newspapers or laptops or phones, and the same people were still going about their day in the typical weekend fashion. He didn't let himself look at Anakin and Padmé again, not as he pushed himself away from the table.</p><p>Obi-Wan picked up his umbrella and looked out at the rain again. He had been annoyed that he had parked a little ways from the coffeeshop, but now he was glad that he could walk, even if it was in dreadful weather. He needed to clear his mind of...whatever his meeting with his son was.</p><p>Obi-Wan winced as he walked out of the coffee shop. <em>Meeting</em>—that was the word meant for things like discussions between colleagues and deans and lawyers. That wasn't the kind of word one was meant to use when having a conversation with one's son.</p><p>Obi-Wan shoved his hand in his pocket and started down the street. A car sped past, and Obi-Wan took a few steps back to avoid getting splashed on. He heard music blasting from another car—really, at that point, people were just being obnoxious, but Obi-Wan supposed that was a good enough distraction as any.</p><p>He rounded a corner, shifted his umbrella to his other hand as he searched for his keys. Probably down at the bottom…</p><p>Obi-Wan slowed his pace as he reached closer and closer to where he had parked. He frowned, digging his hand deeper into his pocket. He could have sworn his keys had…<em>aha</em>—Obi-Wan wrapped his fingers around his keys and drew them out. Readjusting his grip on his umbrella again, Obi-Wan reached his car door.</p><p>Another second passed, and then Obi-Wan unlocked the car. He slipped into the driver's seat, shook off the rain from his jacket. He tossed the umbrella into the passenger seat, and for a moment, Obi-Wan could just try to bring warmth back into his hands. He became only more aware of the rain hitting the windows, the low rumble of the engine after he brought it to life.</p><p>Obi-Wan looked back up at the street. Still not too many pedestrians walking around at this point—just a few other cars driving past. Obi-Wan saw a little girl wearing oversized rain boots stomp into a puddle. Her mother swept by, picking her up from under the arms to keep her from running right into the street.</p><p>Obi-Wan looked away. He should go back to his apartment. He had other things to do, anyways. Things that wouldn't get done if he just stayed parked on the street.</p><p>The next few movements were robotic, automatic: Obi-Wan started up the car, pulled away from the parking spot. He made his way onto the street eventually, passed the familiar stores and restaurants. He turned on the radio and listened for about a minute before deciding that he actually didn't particularly feel like dry, flat commentary on the traffic report.</p><p><em>Dry commentary on a rainy day</em>, Obi-Wan thought. Ha.</p><p>He turned a corner, only to catch an all-too-familiar figure out of the corner of his eye.</p><p>Despite himself, Obi-Wan found himself slowing the car as an already rain-soaked Anakin Skywalker walked past him.</p><p>Anakin had both his hands shoved in his pockets, his shoulders hunched over. Obi-Wan half-expected Padmé to be somewhere near him, but when he looked, there was no one there. Just Anakin, still walking with his head held low and his sneakered feet kicking up puddles.</p><p>Obi-Wan paused.</p><p>The light turned, and the car behind Obi-Wan honked.</p><p>Anakin turned just as Obi-Wan jerked the car forward.</p><p>He caught a glimpse of Anakin's face once—and then Obi-Wan was pulling the car to a stop just around the corner. He looked out the rearview mirror to find Anakin still walking and then—</p><p>Obi-Wan looked out front, sighed, grabbed the umbrella, and stepped out of the car. He saw Anakin only just hitting the corner, probably right about to cross the street. Obi-Wan crossed the sidewalk in a few brisk steps, and this time, Anakin looked up to actually meet his gaze.</p><p>"Professor," Anakin said.</p><p>"Anakin," Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>The rain continued falling.</p><p>Obi-Wan stuck out the umbrella.</p><p>Anakin looked at it. "I don't—"</p><p>"You're soaked," Obi-Wan said. "I'd offer you a ride, but…"</p><p>Anakin gave Obi-Wan a grim smile. "I know. But really, it's—"</p><p>"It's only an umbrella," Obi-Wan said. He kept it held out, even though the rain was gradually soaking through his clothes, too.</p><p>They both stood at that corner for another minute before Anakin finally took the umbrella.</p><p>"Thanks," he said.</p><p>"You're welcome," Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>"I'll see you in class then?" Anakin asked, opening the umbrella.</p><p>"Yes," Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>Anakin held up the umbrella. "Can I walk you back to your car?"</p><p>Obi-Wan paused. There was nothing suggestive in Anakin's face or in his voice—a slight weariness to it, the kind that Obi-Wan guessed might have had something to do whatever happened in the coffee shop, and for a moment, Obi-Wan wondered if it was a good time to ask—and then he quickly dismissed that thought, because there was no universe in which <em>that </em>would be a good question to ask to begin with—</p><p>"I can make it back on my own," Obi-Wan replied, and he managed what he hoped was a convincing smile. "Thank you for the offer."</p><p>A corner of Anakin's lips twitched, and Obi-Wan caught himself before he could smile back.</p><p>"I'll see you in class," Obi-Wan said, and he turned back around before he could do anything else damning.</p><p>--</p><p>Hours later, Obi-Wan found himself sitting at the kitchen table, laptop still blinking in front of him at one side, phone screen blinking at the other.</p><p>He couldn't remember how long he had been working in this same spot. He had gotten home a little earlier than he had expected...had sat down at the table, and it had at least been a little bright when he started working, but things were all dark now.</p><p>Obi-Wan rubbed a hand over his face. Looked at the clock and registered the numbers. Well, that explained things.</p><p>He closed his laptop, pushed himself away from the table. He should stop working. Go to bed. Get some sleep.</p><p>An alert from Obi-Wan's phone dragged him back.</p><p>Obi-Wan glanced down. A message from Satine, telling him about Thanksgiving.</p><p>Thanksgiving. That was still weeks away, but they had to start thinking about it some way or another.</p><p>Obi-Wan couldn't think of a response. He set down his phone, pushed his hand to his face again, as though by not seeing the message, it would simply no longer exist.</p><p>His phone buzzed again, and despite himself, Obi-Wan managed to look down.</p><p>A notification from one of the social media apps that Korkie had forced Obi-Wan to download years ago—</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked and, picking up his phone, stared at the screen for a good few seconds before registering the name blinking back up at him.</p><p>He wasn't sure why Anakin was requesting to follow him, but—</p><p>Obi-Wan opened the app.</p><p>The follow request disappeared.</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked down at the screen. <em>Right, then</em>.</p><p>He needed to get some sleep, anyways.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>so sorry for the late update -- i am, in fact, the worst. life was hard, but things should be clearing up for me from now on. i think i might start updating on sundays now instead, just because of how things are turning out in my schedule. </p><p>next update will either tentatively be next week or two weeks from now! </p><p>and as always, comments, kudos, and/or subscriptions are greatly appreciated!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he sat down to the table. He just knew that Padmé was on the other side, and she was smiling at him as though this was just another meeting between longtime friends. And her smile seemed so real that for a moment, Anakin was almost willing to believe that this was <em>just </em>a meeting, too. Just another thing for old friends to catch up on—old friends, nothing more, nothing less. No weird history between them at all.</p><p>“What’d you get?” Padmé asked, nodding at Anakin’s cup.</p><p>Anakin blinked, looked down at the paper cup. He couldn’t remember.</p><p>“Can’t remember,” he replied. He took a quick sip, winced. Too hot.</p><p>“Too hot?” Padmé said.</p><p>“Yeah.” Anakin paused. “You planning on getting anything or…?”</p><p>“I ordered ahead,” Padmé replied. She nodded to the counter behind Anakin. “Nothing there so far, but I’ll interrupt you when I need to pick it up.”</p><p>Anakin nodded. “Smart.”</p><p>Padmé smiled again. “So how are you?”</p><p>“Good,” Anakin replied. “Fine.” He started to take another sip of his drink before remembering that his tongue was still scorched raw from the first time. He set the cup back down on the table, feeling stupid. “How…are you?”</p><p>“Also good,” Padmé replied. “Also fine.”</p><p>“Work…doing okay?” Anakin asked. Every single word seemed to come out of him a little lagged. Some kind of error in the system. A glitch in the system—that was the correct terminology. <em>Sorry, ma’am, we’ve got a glitch in the system. Stand by. We’re doing our best to get things back online.</em></p><p><em>“</em>Something along those lines,” Padmé replied.</p><p>The barista called Padmé’s name, and Padmé shot Anakin another quick smile. “I’ll be back.”</p><p>And then she got up, left the table. Anakin watched her walk over to the counter. She smiled at the barista, too, and Anakin found himself looking past Padmé and to one particular table by the windows. Obi-Wan was talking to the teenager with the auburn hair—and the boy seemed to be talking back, though he looked a little more intent on playing with the cup.</p><p>Anakin looked back down at his drink as Padmé turned. He kept looking at his drink until Padmé sat down across from him.</p><p>“So,” Padmé said. “What about grad school? Congratulations, by the way.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Anakin replied. “Grad school’s fine. It’s…” He flicked his eyes up to Padmé, and for a moment, he could almost hear himself telling her about how strange it was for him to be doing grad school at the same place he had done undergrad. How strange it was for him to keep walking the same campus that he had walked around for four years, only then with Padmé right next to him. How strange it was for him to walk into the student center without being reminded of how Padmé and he used to lounge in the seats in between classes and late at night, when neither of them felt like making the hike up to the library. How strange it was for him to suddenly now be the one walking alone to the humanities quad, when in the past, he had only ever walked to the humanities quad to surprise Padmé after her classes. (She was almost always in the humanities quad, almost always through all four years of undergrad. Anakin had almost always been in the science quad, and he had only ever gone up to the humanities quad for recitation and…again, surprising Padmé.)</p><p>But Anakin decided not to tell Padmé any of that.</p><p>“It’s fine,” Anakin repeated. “Pretty sure some of the professors never thought they’d see me again. I scared Professor Windu on my way up to one of my classes.”</p><p>Padmé laughed into her cup. Of course, she didn’t burn her tongue. “To be fair, I think he deserves to be a little scared after that stunt you pulled senior year…”</p><p>Anakin remembered that. He hadn’t <em>meant </em>to start a fire in the lab, but he had. He also remembered Padmé shaking her head and going “oh, <em>Ani</em>…” when he had stumbled out smelling vaguely of smoke. That had been in the fall semester, when things were still okay. Anakin had tried to kiss her then, and Padmé had laughed right into the kiss, her hands clutching the front of his slightly singed shirt. Professor Windu had interrupted to remind Anakin that he was most definitely going to be cleaning up after the lab for the next few months to make up for the fact that he almost burned the whole lab down.</p><p>Anakin had nodded, but he remembered that he had also still been laughing a little—whether from the high of just barely suppressing something from becoming too dangerous or from the high of just being around Padmé, he wasn’t sure. But he had been laughing then.</p><p>Anakin didn’t really feel like laughing now.</p><p>“Guess so,” Anakin replied. “We’re on speaking terms, though.”</p><p>“That’s good. And your other classes?” Padmé asked. “I know that you have Obi-Wan as one of your professors…”</p><p>“Right,” Anakin replied. “Yeah.” He paused. “How do you two know each other again?”</p><p>“Conference,” Padmé replied. “It’s really all a funny story, actually—some taxi malfunction, and then it was the two of us in Manhattan.”</p><p>“Sounds like an interesting time,” Anakin commented, sipping from his drink. It had actually cooled enough for him to actually take it this time around.</p><p>“It was,” Padmé replied. “I didn’t realize he was teaching at our school though—is he new?”</p><p>“Relatively,” Anakin said.</p><p>“I think,” he added after a beat.</p><p>“Oh. That explains it,” Padmé said. “Because I thought we would have remembered him if he was teaching when we were around.”</p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?”</p><p>Padmé blinked. “It’s not supposed to mean anything,” she said. “It’s just supposed to mean that we might have remembered him if he was teaching when we were around.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“Right,” Padmé said.</p><p>They both fell silent.</p><p>“And how’s Ahsoka? Are you two still living together?”</p><p>“Don’t you already know about that?” Anakin asked. He looked at Padmé. Her smile started to fade a little. “I mean, you two…text each other.”</p><p>“Not every day,” Padmé said. “Maybe once a month…”</p><p>“Yeah, well.” Anakin paused. “We’re still living together. She’s busy. That’s it.” He thought about mentioning that Ahsoka might actually be moving in with Trace soon, but. He decided not to bring that up. If Ahsoka and Padmé talked, that topic would probably come up amongst themselves.</p><p>“Right,” Padmé said. She smiled wistfully. “She’s a senior now, right?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“You mentioned she was working on her thesis. Must be a lot of work.”</p><p>“It’s driving her crazy.” Actually, Anakin was pretty sure he was being driven crazy right now, too. Driven crazy second by second, because all of this talking and not talking at all was making him wish that he had never come in the first place.</p><p>“She’ll get through it,” Padmé said after a little while. “She’s always been made out of stubborn stuff.”</p><p>“’Course,” Anakin replied.</p><p>They both looked down at their drinks.</p><p>And then Padmé said, “It’s nice seeing you again, Anakin.”</p><p>Her voice had gone soft the way she said his name—<em>Anakin</em>. Not <em>Ani</em>. Anakin.</p><p>Anakin had heard her say his name in varying tones—the giggled, happy tone, and the exasperated, mildly disappointed tone, and towards the end, the pained and tired and sad tone. <em>Anakin, I can’t</em>—</p><p>“It’s…” Anakin tried to say <em>it’s nice to see you, too</em>. Those were probably the words that he was supposed to say.</p><p>Those were the words he was <em>supposed </em>to say.</p><p>He looked at Padmé again.</p><p>She looked at him.</p><p>And then, quietly, Anakin asked, “Why are we doing this?”</p><p>He half expected Padmé to ask him what he meant—but she dropped her gaze from Anakin’s face, and he knew that she wasn’t about to go that far. Going that far would be too cruel.</p><p>“I’m just going to be back in town for a little while,” Padmé said after a little while. “And…well.” She reached into her purse, and Anakin noticed that her hands were steady. They were always steady, and a part of him wasn’t really surprised that her hands were steady even as she pushed the little box to the table.</p><p>Anakin looked down at the little box for what felt like hours before Padmé spoke again.</p><p>“I’m sorry for holding onto it for so long,” she said quietly. “I meant to mail it back to you—I did—but I didn’t really know if…when there was a good time—”</p><p>Anakin stared at the box. A part of him wanted to take it and throw it out the window. Except there weren’t any actual windows in this coffee shop—just fancy walls that just so happened to be made out of glass.</p><p>So he just looked at the box, and then he looked back at Padmé.</p><p>“I’m going to be leaving the country in a few months,” Padmé said at last. “For work. Some international stuff. It’s all a bit new, but…someone’s got to be sent over there.”</p><p>Anakin kept looking at the box. He almost didn’t register Padmé’s words until something else clicked. “International?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Padmé replied. “I might even be moving there for…a while.” She cleared her throat. “So I’m just getting things together at home. Tidying things up.”</p><p>“Right,” Anakin said, lifting the cup up to his mouth. He didn’t taste the coffee.</p><p>“I didn’t mean it like that.”</p><p>“Tidying things up—got it.”</p><p>“Anakin—”</p><p>“I get it.”</p><p>“Anakin—”</p><p>“So you’re in town for a few more months?” Anakin asked. “What’s the…why? I thought your firm’s based in New York.”</p><p>Padmé looked at him.</p><p>Anakin looked back down at his cup. “Ahsoka <em>does </em>update me time to time,” he mumbled.</p><p>“I see.” Padmé’s voice was quiet. And then, after a pause, she said, “It’s not my old firm, not exactly…” She cleared her throat. “It’s just something that I found on my own. I decided that New York was fun and all, but it’s just New York.”</p><p>“<em>Just </em>New York,” Anakin said.</p><p>“I know, that sounds so pretentious—”</p><p>“No,” Anakin said into his cup. “It just sounds like you.”</p><p>Another pause.</p><p>“And what’s that supposed to mean?”</p><p>“What do you think it means?”</p><p>“I think it means that you’re trying to be—”</p><p>“Trying to be…?”</p><p>“You’re trying to be mean.” Padmé’s voice was still quiet. “It’s not a good look on you.”</p><p>“You know what else isn’t a good look?” Anakin asked, snapping his head up. “Just <em>showing up </em>out of <em>nowhere</em>—”</p><p>“I didn’t know you’d actually be back at <em>school</em>—”</p><p>“And you—<em>you</em>,” Anakin started, “you’re acting like <em>everything’s </em>fine—<em>Anakin, how are you</em>, and <em>Anakin, nice to see you</em>, and—”</p><p>“And what did you <em>think </em>I would do?” Padmé asked sharply. “Did you want me to just <em>ignore </em>you?”</p><p>“That’d be better than whatever the fuck you’re doing right <em>now</em>—”</p><p>“That’s <em>such </em>bullshit,” Padmé said. “You can’t <em>stand </em>it when people ignore you—”</p><p>“And <em>now </em>you care what I can’t stand—”</p><p>“<em>Stop </em>it—”</p><p>“No,” Anakin said, “<em>you </em>stop acting like—”</p><p>A crash brought both Anakin and Padmé’s attention away from each other. A woman was mumbling something, and Anakin looked down to see shattered bits of a plate by his foot. He shot a quick look at Padmé, who was wiping a hand over her face—and suddenly, Anakin felt guilty, and maybe that was why he quickly ducked to the ground to pick up the pieces of the plate. He heard Padmé say something to the woman above him, and all the while, Anakin’s ears rang as he put together the pieces of the broken plate.</p><p>And then Padmé was crouched in front of him, a strand of her dark hair falling over her face as she wiped up the crumbs and leftovers from the floor. She was still saying something to the woman, and Anakin knew that was why she was smiling—smiling like nothing had happened, even though her eyes were still red-rimmed.</p><p>Anakin threw out the broken pieces of the plate. He was dully aware of himself saying “you’re welcome” and “don’t worry about it” to the woman, and he was dully aware of Padmé saying the same, and then they were sitting across from each other again, looking for words that neither of them particularly wanted to say.</p><p>“I didn’t want to fight with you,” Padmé said at last.</p><p>Anakin looked down at the table. He was tired. So tired, he realized.</p><p>“I know you didn’t,” he said.</p><p>“I just…” Padmé’s voice was pained. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. After…everything. And especially after your mom…”</p><p>The box and the cup blurred before Anakin’s eyes.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”</p><p>He closed his eyes briefly. Tired.</p><p>He heard the rain pattering against the windows, and somewhere, the bell at the door jingled.</p><p>“Anakin—”</p><p>“Padmé,” Anakin said, and her name scraped against the back of his throat. He looked for something more to say. There had been plenty of words said between them before, but now—</p><p>Anakin just took the box and stuffed it in his pocket. “I have to go,” he said, and not waiting for a response, he left.</p><p>--</p><p>So that was how Anakin left Padmé, and that was when Obi-Wan had found him. Obi-Wan, out of all people, who had found Anakin walking around in the rain half-numb from whatever the hell that conversation in the coffee shop had been.</p><p>He had just heard the car honk somewhere near him—and for a second, Anakin wondered if it was just some loser who liked honking at pedestrians, but then he turned and saw Obi-Wan drive hastily forward. Anakin didn’t really have enough time to think too much about it other than <em>so he’s out here too</em>.</p><p>And Anakin had been ready to keep walking when Obi-Wan came to a stop across the street. Anakin didn’t know whether to keep walking or to just stay in place.</p><p>He decided to stay in place as Obi-Wan got out of the car, one hand wrapped around an umbrella.</p><p>“Professor,” Anakin said once Obi-Wan got close enough.</p><p>“Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied. He looked tired, Anakin noticed, and he wondered what kind of conversation he must have had with his son. Obi-Wan paused, and then after a moment, he held out the umbrella. It took Anakin a second to understand what was happening.</p><p>When he did, Anakin started, “I don’t—”</p><p>“You’re soaked,” Obi-Wan interrupted. He turned to nod at the car behind him. “I’d offer you a ride, but…”</p><p>Right. Anakin knew. He tried for a smile. <em>Easy, Skywalker. </em>“I know. But really, it’s—”</p><p>“It’s only an umbrella.”</p><p>Anakin lifted his eyes up to Obi-Wan. His glasses were slowly getting more and more pelted by the rain, and for an instance, Anakin imagined himself slipping Obi-Wan’s glasses off and drying them. Anakin’s fingers tingled at the thought.</p><p>Anakin took the umbrella instead.</p><p>“Thanks,” he said.</p><p>“You’re welcome,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>They paused, and because he had nothing better to do, Anakin opened the umbrella. “I’ll see you in class then?”</p><p>“Yes,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>Anakin held up the umbrella. He looked at Obi-Wan again. He had removed his glasses, dried them with a swipe of his sleeve. “Can I walk you back to your car?”</p><p>Obi-Wan paused. He looked up at Anakin—because he had to look up, Anakin realized. Obi-Wan was a little shorter than him.</p><p>“I can make it back on my own,” Obi-Wan replied, and he smiled, but it looked tired. “Thank you for the offer.”</p><p>Anakin tried for a smile back of his own.</p><p>Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “I’ll see you in class,” he said.</p><p>Anakin nodded, but Obi-Wan was already walking away.</p><p>--</p><p>Anakin set the umbrella against the wall and walked to the kitchen. He opened the fridge, reached blindly for a beer can. Slammed himself down on the couch and, not caring if he was still a little wet from the rain, cracked open the can.</p><p>He drank down about half the can before realizing that Ahsoka wasn’t at the apartment. He took out his phone, found a message from her: <em>Going to be a little late. </em></p><p>Anakin swallowed down more beer, closed out of his messages. He didn’t know what he was looking for, except he needed to…not think.</p><p>He finished the beer can, went into the kitchen to grab another.</p><p>Sat back down on the couch.</p><p>--</p><p>Anakin wound up watching the entirety of <em>The Good Place</em>. Ahsoka would probably be mad at him when she came home, but so far, she <em>wasn’t </em>home, so she would just have to get mad at him later.</p><p>And then Anakin wound up watching about half of this crappy Lifetime movie before realizing that he had seen this one before, and he knew that the dad was the killer, and that was a shame, because the dad was actually kind of attractive. Anakin closed out of that movie, and then he considered texting Ahsoka about Padmé, but then he decided against that too.</p><p>Anakin opened up his social media apps instead. He knew Padmé’s handle—but looking through his ex’s Instagram seemed like a bad idea, especially with his head buzzing with alcohol. Anakin was glad he had at least that much sense.</p><p>Anakin settled for swiping through the rest of his feed instead. And then…</p><p>Anakin looked to the umbrella sitting against the wall. It had almost completely dried now.</p><p>Anakin turned back around to his phone. And out of sheer curiosity, he typed <em>Obi-Wan Kenobi</em>…</p><p>Ha. So Obi-Wan <em>did </em>have a profile.</p><p>Only it was locked.</p><p>Anakin frowned at his screen. <em>Booo</em>…<em>not fair</em>.</p><p>“Not fair,” Anakin muttered, poking a finger at Obi-Wan’s profile picture. It was a nice profile picture, Obi-Wan looking backwards at the camera with his glasses sitting on his head. A very casual academic look. “Everything about you <em>isn’t fair</em>…”</p><p>Anakin poked at the profile picture again.</p><p>And then it took him a second to realize that the blue <em>request follow </em>button had turned white.</p><p><em>Requested</em>—</p><p>Anakin swore.</p><p>He hastily took back the request and, after another moment, threw his phone to the coffee table.</p><p>He needed another drink.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>would just like to say that i am incredibly proud of myself for actually updating when i said i would--next chapter will also hopefully be up in a week or two!</p><p>as always, comments/kudos/subscriptions are greatly appreciated!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Obi-Wan woke up with a headache that he didn’t think he was capable of having anymore. One of the more unpleasant headaches, too, the kind that pulsed faintly behind his eyes. He became aware of the light filtering through the window shades, and only after a few seconds did he become aware of his alarm going off.</p><p>With more effort than he would have liked, Obi-Wan reached over to turn off his alarm. His hand fumbled over his phone, and after some time, he managed to stop that senseless beeping. He dropped his head back onto his pillow a moment later, trying to remember when exactly he had gone to bed…how he had managed to get into bed—</p><p><em>Ah</em>. Working. He had been working. Again.</p><p>And then he had…</p><p>Obi-Wan propped himself up on his elbows, rubbed a hand over his face. He checked his phone again, and then he vaguely remembered how he could have sworn he saw Anakin’s name on his screen…Obi-Wan checked his phone again now, but there was nothing there.</p><p>Obi-Wan set his phone back down.</p><p>He watched some of the morning light continue to brighten his room before deciding that he had better get out of bed now.</p><p>--</p><p>He checked his phone a few more times. Decided that he would respond to Satine about Thanksgiving break plans. Korkie wanted to spend the holiday with Satine, and he would have him the weekend after. Obi-Wan agreed to both counts. Korkie tended to make the jokes about how funny it was that their family took part in Thanksgiving when none of them were proper Americans—the family having only moved to the country when Korkie was still a young boy.</p><p>But there was something to be said of even those little traditions, no matter how bizarre they felt when they were first made. Obi-Wan had a feeling that there would be more bizarre traditions to come, even if they wouldn’t be the same kind that they had been before.</p><p>Traditions like switching Korkie’s weekends, two holidays…Obi-Wan imagined two birthdays now. <em>Two is better than one</em>, Obi-Wan thought, though he didn’t feel any particular amusement from that.</p><p>He just felt empty.</p><p>When Padmé called asking whether Obi-Wan would like to have lunch with her, he agreed.</p><p>--</p><p>“Long time, no see,” Padmé said by way of greeting.</p><p>“Truly,” Obi-Wan replied, managing a smile. “I can barely remember the last time we saw each other.”</p><p>Padmé’s smile in return told Obi-Wan that she was just as relieved for his response as he was for hers. But as they sat down at their usual spot, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but see Anakin’s stiffening shoulders, hear the clatter of a plate against the floor. Anakin, walking on the sidewalk by himself.</p><p>“I think they’ve got new specials,” Padmé said now, tapping on the menu.</p><p>“Interesting?”</p><p>“Maybe,” Padmé replied.</p><p>In the end, Padmé ordered the special—some pasta dish, while Obi-Wan stuck with the same order that he was fairly certain he had gotten the last time they had met.</p><p>“So,” Padmé started. “How’s your weekend been?”</p><p>Obi-Wan thought of the partially disastrous day that was yesterday. “Could be better,” he replied over his water glass. “And yours?”</p><p>Padmé paused. “Could have been better,” she replied.</p><p>They exchanged half grimaces.</p><p>And then, after a little while, Padmé said, “I know you want to ask.”</p><p>“Do I?”</p><p>“Don’t you?”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at Padmé. A part of him <em>had </em>wondered, and a part of him <em>still </em>wondered, and yet…</p><p>He shook his head. “I told you before,” he said. “Whatever history there is, you can keep that for yourself.” He set his glass down. “And I wouldn’t ask. Seems inappropriate, given the circumstances.”</p><p>Padmé’s expression softened. Then, shaking her head, she said ruefully, “I’m sorry. Things have been…”</p><p>“Strange?”</p><p>Padmé let out a short laugh. “That’s one word for it,” she said. “I was going to use another word though.”</p><p>“Well, we’re both adults. I promise I won’t be scandalized.”</p><p>“I’m sure,” Padmé said. She took a sip from her own water, and the two lapsed back into a more comfortable silence.</p><p>Well, what Obi-Wan hoped was a more comfortable silence for the two of them, anyways. Obi-Wan glanced up at Padmé once, and despite himself, he couldn’t help but what actually happened between Anakin and herself.<em> Something </em>had happened, and now Obi-Wan remembered Padmé saying that they had been friends in the past.</p><p>As for Anakin…Obi-Wan suddenly remembered that he had been trying to impress someone at a diving board. <em>She was worried</em>—a <em>she</em>.</p><p>Padmé lifted her head, and Obi-Wan turned to his glass again. Quickly, he asked, “And how is your family?”</p><p>“The family?” Padmé paused mid-chew, and Obi-Wan wondered if perhaps that was the wrong question to ask. But then she swallowed, and with a quick smile, she said, “The family’s fine. Busy. A good kind of busy, though.” She shifted some food on her plate. “Actually, I guess they’re busy because of my switching firms…”</p><p>She suddenly looked uncertain, and Obi-Wan had the feeling that this was something that he could ask about. Should ask about.</p><p>“How so?” he asked gently.</p><p>Padmé didn’t speak for a while. She just shifted the food on her plate again and, after another while, she said, “My father’s retiring from his own practice.” She looked up at Obi-Wan with a wry smile. “He wants me to take over the firm.”</p><p>She smiled again, but Obi-Wan had the unpleasant feeling that—</p><p>“You’re not excited?”</p><p>Padmé lifted her shoulders. “It’s either myself or my sister,” she said. “But Sola’s been out of practice for a few years now—too busy with the children.” She grimaced, and, as though guilty for doing so, she covered it up with another tight smile. The third one in the span of the last few seconds, Obi-Wan noticed.</p><p>“And your father…”</p><p>“He means well,” Padmé said lightly. “A little old-fashioned, but again. He means well.”</p><p>“And you plan to take over?”</p><p>Padmé shrugged. “Like I said, New York’s the city that never sleeps—and I like my sleep.”</p><p>“And do you like taking over your father’s firm?”</p><p>“Going right for the jugular, aren’t you?”</p><p>Obi-Wan lifted his shoulders. “Do you?”</p><p>Padmé was quiet. Then, after a long moment, she said, “It’s a little more complicated than that. Family.” She grimaced. “Family can be complicated sometimes. Especially with…work.”</p><p>Obi-Wan thought of yesterday.</p><p>“Yes,” he said, and he wondered if Padmé had noticed the absence of his ring again—surely, she must have noticed, because her eyes softened a little at his response.</p><p>So he supposed he wasn’t quite surprised when Padmé asked, “Yesterday, were you…was that—”</p><p>“Ah.” Now it was Obi-Wan’s turn to give a halfhearted smile of his own. “My son.”</p><p>“Right.” Another too-long pause. “He’s…in high school?”</p><p>“Sixteen.”</p><p>“Sixteen,” Padmé said. “Everything’s always so much more confusing when you’re sixteen.”</p><p>Obi-Wan wondered if Padmé had heard or seen any of their conversation—but no, he decided that wasn’t the case. She was looking a little way from Obi-Wan’s shoulder, eyes somewhere far, far away. But then she blinked and gave him a sympathetic smile. “Family,” she said.</p><p>“Family,” Obi-Wan echoed.</p><p>They clinked their glasses together.</p><p>--</p><p>“So today we’ll be resuming our discussion on—”</p><p>The doors banged open, and Obi-Wan looked up to find Anakin scrambling for his seat. A few students looked his way, but besides that, there was nothing more than a few eye-rolls and some awkward shuffling at the sudden interruption.</p><p>Anakin only slid into his usual seat. His face was a little pink, probably from the trek all the way up to the classroom. His hair was a little mussed too, clothes rumpled, looking most definitely less put-together than he had in past classes…</p><p>Obi-Wan flicked his eyes back to the rest of the class, wondering if perhaps he had stared too long—but no, most of the students were busily shifting around their own notes. Some were yawning a little.</p><p>“As I was saying,” Obi-Wan continued, glancing abruptly down at the lectern. He couldn’t quite read his notes, so he jerked his head back up. “We’ll be resuming our discussion on Gaskell…”</p><p>He managed through the rest of the lecture, only allowing himself to look at Anakin a few more times. Anakin’s head was down most of the time, his pencil moving furiously at something that Obi-Wan only later guessed weren’t actual notes for his class—mostly because no one else was taking notes, not even the ones who sat at the front of the classroom.</p><p>Obi-Wan diverted his attention to the rest of the class for the rest of the lecture.</p><p>“Remember your discussion sections,” he said near the end. “You all still have papers due this week, but I expect questions and some discussion.” He lifted an eyebrow at some of the students. “And, if you plan to procrastinate, or if you <em>are </em>still procrastinating on this paper, then discussion might actually help you start somewhere.”</p><p>Some laughter at that, although a bit strained. Obi-Wan suspected that some were most certainly procrastinating, and he knew that some of the essays would read in such a way. Still, he managed another light smile at those awkward, slightly pained nods before he dismissed class.</p><p>There was the usual cacophony of chairs bouncing back into position as students stood up and packed their bags. The simultaneously drowsy and anxious hubbub of students on their way to either their next class or to a work session filled the lecture hall, and in that moment, Obi-Wan felt both oddly grounded and not.</p><p>He shuffled his notes together and looked at Cody.</p><p>“Told you,” was all that Cody said.</p><p>Obi-Wan shook his head, mouthed, <em>quiet</em>, should a lingering student hear them.</p><p>The corners of Cody’s eyes only wrinkled in amusement. He stood up and, with a quick little nod, he said, “I’ll see you later?”</p><p>“Yes,” Obi-Wan replied. “Have a nice day, Cody.”</p><p>“Likewise,” Cody said. He swung his backpack over his shoulder and nodded to the back of the lecture hall. “Just a heads-up—you might have one of those procrastinators up.”</p><p>Obi-Wan followed Cody’s gaze to where Anakin was, in fact, still packing.</p><p>“Ah,” Obi-Wan said, wondering if his tone was as neutral as he wanted. “Yes. Thank you, Cody.”</p><p>Cody just nodded—and with that, he was walking out of the lecture hall. Obi-Wan noticed Anakin and Cody nodding to each other—really just a quick, respectful bob of the head to each other—and then Obi-Wan realized with some startling clarity that they were the only ones left in the lecture hall.</p><p>Obi-Wan cleared his throat, looked back down at the lectern. He reached blindly for his bag. Flipped it open to sort in his notes, maybe his pens…he didn’t know where his pen went—</p><p>Obi-Wan heard the footsteps shortly after, and he waited a full fifteen seconds before deciding to lift his head.</p><p>“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “How can I help you?”</p><p>“I didn’t need anything,” Anakin said. Up closer now, Obi-Wan could tell that Anakin’s eyes were just faintly red-rimmed, just the slightest shadows underneath. But now Anakin ducked his head as he reached into his backpack, passed along an umbrella. The umbrella. “Figured I should return this.”</p><p>“I see,” Obi-Wan said. He took the umbrella back, ignoring the way their fingers knocked against each other. He set the umbrella down beside him so that he wouldn’t forget it when he walked out. “Is that—”</p><p>“And sorry about being late,” Anakin said. “That was…there was—” Anakin stopped for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Won’t happen again.”</p><p>“I’m sure it won’t,” Obi-Wan replied. He tucked the umbrella into his bag and looked at Anakin again. “And how are things with…your paper?”</p><p>“Good,” Anakin replied. There was something a little automatic about his voice. “Paper’s been…good.”</p><p>“That’s good.”</p><p>They both looked down at whatever was closest to themselves: for Obi-Wan, it was the lectern, and for Anakin, it was his hands.</p><p>“In any case, I should…” Obi-Wan gestured to the end of the lecture hall.</p><p>“Right,” Anakin said. “<em>Right</em>.” He shifted to the side, gestured for Obi-Wan to walk up first.</p><p>Obi-Wan did so, shouldering his messenger bag in the process. He took the first few steps away from the lectern, heard Anakin follow.</p><p>“Are you busy with your other classes?” Obi-Wan asked, just for the sake of filling the silence.</p><p>“A little,” Anakin replied. From the lilt of his voice, Obi-Wan knew that Anakin was looking away somewhere. But Obi-Wan didn’t bother turning around to make sure if he was correct—those kinds of things seemed trivial. Turning around to make sure that the person following him was looking in the direction he thought he was looking…there was a tragedy joke waiting to be made there.</p><p>“It’s nice, actually,” Anakin said. “Focusing on something to work on outside all my other assignments.”</p><p>“Value in variety?”</p><p>“Something like that.”</p><p>“Well, that’s good,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m honored my class serves as a distraction from your other tedious classes.”</p><p>“Thanks for teaching it.”</p><p>Obi-Wan held open the door, and this time, he turned briefly to look at Anakin. He found that the younger man’s expression was completely neutral, perhaps a little lighter than it had been a few moments ago—no, it was definitely lighter. Obi-Wan could tell because his shoulders weren’t drawn as tightly together, and he didn’t seem to sound as tired anymore. His voice hadn’t given up quite yet.</p><p>“You’re welcome,” Obi-Wan decided to respond. He gestured out the door and this time, Anakin was the one who stepped through. Obi-Wan followed, closing the door behind himself even though he knew that wasn’t necessary (these heavy doors could always naturally close by themselves).</p><p>“If there’s nothing else…” Obi-Wan shifted his bag against his shoulder again.</p><p>“No,” Anakin said. “That was it.”</p><p>They both stood at the doors.</p><p>“Thanks again, by the way,” Anakin said, his eyes flitting to Obi-Wan’s face. “For the umbrella.”</p><p>“You’re welcome,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>They stood around for some time longer, even though Obi-Wan knew that he should technically be going up to his office now. Anakin should be…Obi-Wan didn’t know where Anakin should be. Somewhere else. Studying in the library or talking to his friends. Decidedly being somewhere that wasn’t here.</p><p>“How are you?” Obi-Wan asked, and he hated himself.</p><p>Anakin blinked. And for an instant, Obi-Wan saw some of that weariness return to his face.</p><p>“Fine,” he said. There was another pause before he asked, “And you?”</p><p>“Fine myself,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>They nodded at each other.</p><p>And then, after a beat, Obi-Wan said, “Horrific liars, aren’t we?”</p><p>He was relieved—and then ashamed—that Anakin laughed. It was a quiet, sad sort of laugh, but it was more than Obi-Wan expected. Anakin shook his head, and when he looked back up, Obi-Wan was again glad and yet not when he found that the younger man was smiling a little.</p><p>“Do I get credit for trying?” Anakin asked.</p><p>“Most certainly not,” Obi-Wan replied. “This is a pass/fail sort of thing, I’m afraid.”</p><p>“So I failed?”</p><p>“Quite spectacularly.”</p><p>Another quiet laugh. This time, Obi-Wan couldn’t keep himself from laughing a little either—just the two of them, still standing out the doors. Obi-Wan was glad that there weren’t any other students around. Or janitors. Or other professors.</p><p>But at those thoughts, he became aware of the fact that they <em>were </em>standing outside the lecture hall, and probably for a moment longer than would be expected of the normal professor and student pair.</p><p>“So how do I pass?”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at Anakin. He was still smiling a little—a more lopsided smile, one that briefly reminded Obi-Wan of <em>scrambling hands, barely muffled moans, lips and teeth and—</em></p><p>Obi-Wan looked away. “You tell a more convincing lie,” he said.</p><p>When he looked back at Anakin, he found that the smile had been replaced by something that Obi-Wan couldn’t quite decipher. His brain felt oddly too muddled to even try.</p><p>Then, ducking his head, Anakin said quietly—more quietly than Obi-Wan expected, “Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.”</p><p>His eyes met Obi-Wan’s, and Obi-Wan’s throat went dry.</p><p>He cleared his throat, adjusted his bag over his shoulder again. “I suppose so.”  </p><p>Before he could think of what to say next—because he was thinking of how to quietly end the conversation—the front doors of the building suddenly opened. Both Obi-Wan and Anakin looked, and Obi-Wan didn’t miss the way they both took a half-step away from each other.</p><p>Just another professor—she nodded once at Obi-Wan as she made her way to one of the classrooms. To Obi-Wan’s relief, the professor didn’t look twice at the two standing in front of the lecture hall.</p><p>But beyond the front doors, which were still slowly closing—Obi-Wan saw rain. Heavier than the one over the weekend, and Obi-Wan wondered why he hadn’t heard it in the first place. Muddled minds…</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at Anakin. Beside a light jacket, he didn’t have anything to cover him.</p><p>Obi-Wan extended the umbrella again.</p><p>“You don’t have to—”</p><p>“I think I do,” Obi-Wan replied. He tilted his head at Anakin, tried his best for what he hoped was a casual enough smile. “I’m afraid I’ll feel terribly if I send you out of here without this.”</p><p>“I just gave it back to you,” Anakin said.</p><p>“And you can give it back to me again,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>Another moment passed before Anakin finally took the umbrella. “I’ll get my own,” he said. “Eventually.”</p><p>“I believe you,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>Anakin gave Obi-Wan another lopsided smile. “Thanks.”</p><p>“You’re welcome,” Obi-Wan replied, and he took another small step back. “I’ll see you in class then?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Anakin hovered for a moment, his hand still wrapped around the umbrella, and then he turned to go.</p><p>Obi-Wan waited for just a moment longer, and he was about to go up to his office when Anakin suddenly turned around.</p><p>“Hope that…” Anakin’s voice faltered. “Things work out for you. Whatever it is.”</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked. And then his throat tightened as he found Anakin’s bright eyes, the genuine look so open—so <em>sincere</em>—on his face.</p><p>“I wish only the same for you too,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>Anakin nodded, his eyes sliding away. “Thanks again,” he said, waving the umbrella a little in the air.</p><p>Obi-Wan just managed a nod before Anakin was walking out the doors.</p><p>He waited until Anakin was fully out of the building before walking up to his office.</p><p>--</p><p>Later that night, Obi-Wan’s laptop chimed with a new email.</p><p>Obi-Wan didn’t even look at the sender before opening it—and he found only a picture of an umbrella (not his own, but a new one).</p><p>Captioned underneath, a single sentence:</p><p><em>Told you I’d get one</em>.</p><p>Obi-Wan started to smile.</p><p>Then he stopped.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*crawls out of pit of shame* yeah, i'm sorry for taking so long to update! luckily, though, classes are finishing up, so i'll actually have time to write now!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin sneezed as soon as he walked into the apartment.</p><p>“Bless you,” Ahsoka said. As she had been the last few days, she was still sitting on the couch, her laptop brought close to her face.</p><p>“Thanks,” Anakin replied, swinging down his backpack. He swung down to the couch and, ignoring Ahsoka’s little shriek of annoyance, buried his face into the nearest pillow. He jerked away suddenly, sneezed again.</p><p>“Gross,” Ahsoka said.</p><p>“Sorry.” He rolled over on his back and looked at Ahsoka. “What are you working on?”</p><p>“Midterms.” Ahsoka groaned, dropping her head back. She rubbed her eyes a few times and added, “Or finals? Pre-finals?” She looked at Anakin. “Explain to me why professors think it’s okay to assign stuff both before and <em>during </em>Thanksgiving break, when they <em>know </em>we have finals like, a week after that.”</p><p>“It’s because they’ve got nothing better to do,” Anakin replied. He closed his eyes briefly, re-opened them. Speaking of…his paper. He needed to actually finish his paper. Without rolling away from the couch, Anakin dropped his hand to his backpack. He somehow managed to get out his laptop, and in another moment he had it sitting on his stomach. He sniffled once, got his laptop to start up.</p><p>Ahsoka glanced over at him quickly. “Don’t you wanna sit up?”</p><p>“Can’t,” Anakin mumbled. “Too tired.” And for the next few minutes, he actually <em>did </em>manage to write a few sentences, albeit uncomfortably.</p><p>“Your wrists are gonna hurt,” Ahsoka said, shaking her head. “They’re gonna hurt <em>so </em>bad, and I’m just gonna laugh at you and tell you that I told you so.”</p><p>“Very funny,” Anakin replied, sniffling. But after a while, he managed to push himself up at least a little bit so that the typing wasn’t as difficult. He brought up his knees a little, and in another half-hour, he had managed to get the next page of his paper done. At one point, Ahsoka stood up to stretch, and then she looked at Anakin.</p><p>“Was it raining outside?” she asked, glancing out the window.</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin replied, narrowing his eyes at the screen. He needed to find a synonym for <em>therefore</em>, he’d used it at least three times in the last paragraph…he sneezed again, nearly dropping his laptop in the process.</p><p>“Careful,” Ahsoka said, picking up his laptop. She set it down on the coffee table and looked down at Anakin skeptically. “You sound terrible, by the way.”</p><p>“’m fine,” Anakin replied. He sat up. “Hand me the laptop.”</p><p>“When’s the paper due?” Ahsoka asked, looking at the screen. She tilted her head, and after a moment, she said, “<em>Tess of D’Urbervilles—</em>ugh.”</p><p>“It’s not bad,” Anakin replied, leaning over to grab his laptop. “And paper’s due Thursday.”</p><p>“Okay, so you’ve got a few days. Take a break.”</p><p>“I’m fine,” Anakin repeated. He typed for a few more minutes, looked at Ahsoka. “Listen, I’ll get a few more pages done, and then I’ll stop. Got it?”</p><p>“If you say so,” Ahsoka said. She started down the living room, but before she did, she looked down again at the ground. “Why do you have two umbrellas?”</p><p>Anakin paused. He looked over to where Ahsoka now held up the two in front of her with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“I was talking to someone,” Anakin replied, looking back at his screen. “And it started raining. He lent me his.”</p><p>“So a <em>he</em>…” Ahsoka sat down next to Anakin. “And the other umbrella?”</p><p>“Got a new one,” Anakin said. “He keeps lending me his.”</p><p>“Huh.”</p><p>Anakin typed for a few seconds before Ahsoka asked, “Was it someone at school?”</p><p>“Does it matter?”</p><p>“So it was?”</p><p>Anakin looked at Ahsoka. “Yeah, sure,” he said.</p><p>“Was it Rex?”</p><p>“No,” Anakin replied before he could stop himself. He looked at Ahsoka again. “Why’re you asking?”</p><p>“Just am,” Ahsoka said. Another pause before she asked, “Was it your professor?”</p><p>Anakin stared at the screen. “I’ve got lots of professors,” he said. “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”</p><p>“You know which one I’m talking about.”</p><p>“Do I?”</p><p>“It <em>was</em>!”</p><p>“So what if it was?” Anakin asked, tugging his laptop closer to himself. He kept his gaze pointedly fixed on the screen as he added, “It’s not like he asked me out for <em>drinks. </em>It was just an umbrella.”</p><p>“You said that he <em>keeps </em>lending you his umbrella—”</p><p>“Because he’s a nice person.”</p><p>“Yeah, and umbrellas are also phallic symbols—”</p><p>Anakin stared. “Where’d you hear <em>that</em>?”</p><p>“Freud.”</p><p>“That’s awful,” Anakin snorted. “You’re awful. You know that, Snips?”</p><p>“But I’m right.”</p><p>“And I’m not having this conversation,” Anakin replied. He started the next page of his paper, pointedly ignoring Ahsoka’s look at him. After another moment, he said, “<em>Listen</em>—I’m returning the umbrella to him the next time we see each other, okay?”</p><p>“So you’re <em>seeing</em>—”</p><p>“<em>Class</em>,” Anakin groaned. “You know what I mean.”</p><p>Ahsoka pressed her lips together. “Yeah,” she said after a while. “I know what you mean.” She pushed herself off the couch.</p><p>“Where are you going?”</p><p>“Getting water,” she replied. “You’re gonna sound like you got run over by a truck tomorrow.”</p><p>“Very funny,” Anakin said, sniffling. He turned back around to his laptop and focused on finding the synonyms for…whatever he was trying to find a synonym for. He was fairly sure he was just writing circles around himself at this point…</p><p>Ahsoka re-appeared at his side with a glass and a tissue box.</p><p>“Thanks,” Anakin said.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” Ahsoka replied, plopping down next to him. “Just don’t sneeze all over me, and we should be good. <em>And</em>,” she added, glaring at Anakin, “you’ve got time on that paper, so you’ll actually sleep early this time.”</p><p>“I’ve been sleeping early,” Anakin said.</p><p>Ahsoka just looked at him.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Just…” Ahsoka sighed, and then, to Anakin’s surprise, she reached over and shook him a little by the shoulder. “Try to be better to yourself? Please?”</p><p>Anakin blinked. He tried to laugh, but Ahsoka was looking at him seriously. Too seriously. Anakin suddenly felt guilty, because he remembered Ahsoka coming into the apartment the day after he’d seen Padmé, and he remembered how Ahsoka had looked at the empty beer cans and woken him up with water and Advil.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said after a while. “’Course.”</p><p>--</p><p>So it turned out that he had, in fact, caught a cold. He wound up waking the next morning with a mild enough fever that caused Ahsoka to threaten that if he got up, she would lock him in the apartment for the next week. He wound up watching more of <em>The Good Place</em> as payback, but she didn’t so much as bat an eye. He worked on his paper. Slept. Filled the wastebasket with enough tissues that they spilled over by the middle of the day.</p><p>By day two, Anakin sent an email to Obi-Wan. He figured he had to, just to let him know that he wouldn’t make it to class. He got an email back within minutes, wishing him a speedy recovery.</p><p>Anakin read the message three times over before tugging the covers over his head and trying to sleep off his headache.</p><p>--</p><p>“Do you want to talk about it?”</p><p>Anakin and Ahsoka sat at the edge of the bed, bowls of soup in their lap. (Well, for Anakin, soup. For Ahsoka, a sandwich. Orange juice and cough drops.)</p><p>“Talk about what?” Anakin asked.</p><p>“You know.”</p><p>Anakin swirled his spoon around the soup. Some carrot chunks bobbed back up at him. “Not much to talk about,” he said.</p><p>Ahsoka waited.</p><p>“Did you know that she was going? Leaving the country?” Anakin asked after a while.</p><p>“She’s leaving?”</p><p>Anakin looked at Ahsoka. He guessed that she didn’t know, then, and he felt bad. “Yeah,” he said.</p><p>They sat in some silence.</p><p>“No,” Ahsoka said. “She didn’t tell me.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Anakin looked back down at his soup. “She returned the ring.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Anakin let out a breath, looked up at the ceiling.</p><p>“Do you hate her?” Ahsoka’s voice was small.</p><p>“No,” Anakin replied honestly. He had wanted to for a long time, he realized. Especially in the earlier days. “I don’t think I ever <em>can</em>.”</p><p>“Okay,” Ahsoka replied. “I’m glad.”</p><p>Anakin looked at Ahsoka again. She gave him a sad smile.</p><p>That said about all of it.</p><p>--</p><p>Anakin managed to show up to class the next day. His throat still hurt, and he still had to carry around cough drops, but according to WebMD, he had long since passed his most contagious state. Still, he was sure to keep his coughs and sneezes contained. And, on top of that, he was glad that he usually sat at the back of the lecture hall anyways, so he didn’t get too many people to look at him whenever he <em>did </em>disrupt the class.</p><p>And when class finally ended, Anakin was relieved, because he had been trying to stifle a cough for the last ten minutes. He packed as quickly as he could, turning to cough into his shoulder once or twice. He had long since run out of water, and he was pretty sure the fountains weren’t working right now, which…was wonderful.</p><p>He had just zipped up his backpack when he heard footsteps come his way. At first, Anakin didn’t think too much of it—there might have still been a few students making their way out, but then he heard a throat clear and knew that it wasn’t a student at all.</p><p>Anakin looked up.</p><p>“Feeling better?”</p><p>Anakin stood quickly. “I…yeah,” he said, wincing at the sound of his own voice.</p><p>Obi-Wan noticed, too. “That doesn’t sound too good.”</p><p>“Well,” Anakin said, rubbing his (alarmingly) warm neck. “It was worse a few days ago.” He shifted his bag over his shoulders. “What’d I miss?”</p><p>“Not too much,” Obi-Wan replied. “Presentation slides are up on the class page if you need them.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Anakin said—or tried to say. He wound up coughing into his elbow instead. When he was done, he shot Obi-Wan an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Clearly, still…getting over it.”</p><p>“No need to apologize,” Obi-Wan replied. He took a small step back, and Anakin didn’t blame him—but then Obi-Wan gestured out the doors. “I have…tea in my office, if you’d like.”</p><p>Anakin blinked, and then Obi-Wan nodded pointedly at Anakin’s empty water bottle. “Fluids are best.”</p><p>“Oh. Yeah,” Anakin said, looking quickly down at his water bottle. “Fountains just aren’t…”</p><p>“Working,” Obi-Wan finished. “But I think we’ll get to fixing that soon.”</p><p>“Right.” Anakin suddenly became more aware of the silence gathered around them. And then clearing his throat, he asked, “Are you sure? About the tea?”</p><p>“I…” Obi-Wan’s voice drifted. He suddenly looked a little lost too, and Anakin regretted saying anything at all. But then Obi-Wan nodded. “Of course. It’s just tea.”</p><p>
  <em>Just tea. </em>
</p><p><em>Not like he asked me out for drinks</em>, Anakin suddenly remembered saying.</p><p><em>Not the same</em>, Anakin thought. <em>Nope. This is not the same thing at all. </em></p><p>“Just tea,” Anakin said with a nod.</p><p>The two nodded at each other.</p><p>And then Obi-Wan gestured. “Shall we…”</p><p>“Yeah. Yes.”</p><p>And then they were both walking out of the lecture hall. Anakin kept himself just a step behind Obi-Wan. Looked down to where his hair just barely curled down the back of his neck. Neatly cut, short, so much less unruly than Anakin’s own hair.</p><p>Anakin’s head spun. He had run his hands through that hair. He knew how it felt in between his fingers.</p><p>Anakin somehow managed to walk up the steps after Obi-Wan, somehow managed to keep himself at that same just-a-step-behind-Obi-Wan-distance as they reached his office. Anakin kept his eyes on the back of Obi-Wan’s head as the lock was slowly worked open.</p><p>“Always takes a second,” Obi-Wan said by way of apology.</p><p>“Take all the time you need,” Anakin replied. He leaned against the wall so that he wasn’t looking at the back of Obi-Wan’s head. He found himself observing Obi-Wan’s profile instead. That was much worse.</p><p>But then there was a click, and Obi-Wan pushed open the door. “There we go.”</p><p>He looked at Anakin, and the two paused again.</p><p>“After you,” Obi-Wan said, gesturing inside.</p><p>Anakin nodded.</p><p>He walked inside, and he heard the door close behind them a moment later. Instinctively—too instinctively, too much like a giddy teenager, Anakin felt adrenaline shoot through his veins. Realized that was stupid and foolish because of course, most professors kept their doors closed when they were speaking privately to students.</p><p>“Any preferences?” Obi-Wan asked, moving around Anakin. He set his bag on the desk.</p><p>“Not really,” Anakin replied.</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded. He glanced back at Anakin and said, “You can sit down, you know. Unless you’re in a rush, which—”</p><p>“No,” Anakin replied quickly. “I’m—I don’t need to be anywhere.”</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded. He turned back around, and Anakin sank into the chair on the other side of the desk. He watched Obi-Wan’s movements: noted the hands plucking out the mugs, choosing out the tea. Anakin forced himself to look away eventually, instead focusing on the books sitting on the shelves. He hadn’t been able to notice them the last time he was here—then again, the last time he was here, he had just discovered that his one-night stand had been with his professor…</p><p>But now, Anakin could see the titles on the books: <em>100 Years of Solitude. The Buried Giant. Mary Barton. </em>And, of course, <em>Tess of d’Urbervilles. </em></p><p>It was a wide selection of books—but Anakin remembered the amount of books in Obi-Wan’s own apartment. How he had picked one up before turning to Obi-Wan. Before taking off his glasses and dragging him into bed. (Or maybe Obi-Wan had been the one to push him into bed. Not an aggressive push, though. It might have been just enough of a push that Anakin felt like he was the one dragging Obi-Wan down.)</p><p>“Here.”</p><p>Anakin looked up to find Obi-Wan standing in front of him, mug in hand.</p><p>“Thanks.” Anakin was glad that his voice didn’t sound as funny as it did a few moments ago. He took the mug, ignoring how his fingers just barely brushed against Obi-Wan’s. He brought the mug to his lips, hastily drank.</p><p>“Peppermint,” he said after a moment. He looked at Obi-Wan curiously.</p><p>“Helps with sore throats,” Obi-Wan replied, and he looked almost embarrassed that Anakin would have laughed if he weren’t afraid of coughing. “Among other things.”</p><p>“No—it’s—” Anakin blinked. “It’s good. Haven’t had it in a while.”</p><p>“Not a tea drinker?” Obi-Wan asked, sitting down across from Anakin. Hands still wrapped around the mug.</p><p>“Not really,” Anakin replied. “More of a coffee person.”</p><p>“Yes, well,” Obi-Wan mused, “coffee probably isn’t the best for someone recovering from a cold.”</p><p>“Shame,” Anakin said. “Someone should make it a thing.”</p><p>“Meaning?”</p><p>“Coffee that actually works while you’re sick. Coffee with the same properties as tea.”</p><p>“Instead of just drinking tea?”</p><p>“Mm-hm.” Anakin maintained as serious a look as he possibly could.</p><p>Obi-Wan just looked at him. And then the corners of his eyes started to wrinkle, and he dropped his head briefly. “Sounds very inventive, Anakin.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Anakin replied seriously. “I’ll be sure to mention you in my speech when I accept my Nobel.”</p><p>“You don’t actually work with…” Obi-Wan gestured vaguely. “Genetic engineering, do you?”</p><p>“Engineering, yes,” Anakin replied. “<em>Genetics</em>…not my speed.”</p><p>“Well, I suppose you’ll have to get your Nobel through other means,” Obi-Wan said.</p><p>“Clearly.”</p><p>The two looked down at their mugs again.</p><p>Finally, Anakin said, “I’ve got your umbrella. It’s in my bag.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“No need to sound surprised,” Anakin said, setting the mug on the desk. “I <em>did </em>say I’d return it.” He unzipped his backpack and tugged it out. He set it between Obi-Wan and himself. “And besides, I got my own.”</p><p>“Congratulations on that, by the way.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Anakin took his mug again.</p><p>They were quiet for a little while longer before Obi-Wan asked, “How are you?”</p><p>Anakin looked up. Obi-Wan was watching him carefully, he realized. Had been watching him carefully, those eyes of his—which Anakin realized he was still trying to figure out the exact color of—catching Anakin’s own.</p><p>Anakin managed a quick smile. “You asked that last time,” he said. “First.”</p><p>Obi-Wan smiled back. “Yes, well,” he said, “it’s a fairly common question.”</p><p>“Guess so,” Anakin replied. He took another sip from his mug.  “But I’m fine. All things considered.” He looked at Obi-Wan over the mug. “And…you?”</p><p>“Also fine.”</p><p>They looked at each other.</p><p>“We’re stuck in a time-loop,” Anakin said.</p><p>“I was about to say…”</p><p>“Whatever are we going to do, Professor?” Anakin asked, setting his mug down on the desk.</p><p>“You tell me,” Obi-Wan replied, mirroring Anakin’s movements. “You’re the one in engineering. Do you know anything about physics?”</p><p>“Not the kind that would help us out here,” Anakin replied. He rested his elbow against the desk and leaned in. “What about your books, Professor?”</p><p>Obi-Wan, to both Anakin’s surprise and delight, similarly leaned in. Just the slightest—not too close, not close enough for…anything, but just the slightest enough. If Anakin actually extended his arm all the way, he could probably grab Obi-Wan’s wrist.</p><p>“I’m afraid I have nothing,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>“Shame.”</p><p>Obi-Wan dipped his head. “Apologies for not being much help.” His tone was light, but—</p><p>“No need,” Anakin replied. “You’ve helped a lot.”</p><p>When Obi-Wan looked at him, Anakin clarified, “Umbrella. Tea.”</p><p>Obi-Wan’s expression softened, and Anakin realized that he was in trouble. So much trouble.</p><p>He backed away quickly, nearly knocking away the mug. But at the last second, he took hold of the handle, pushed it back on the desk. “And…speaking of…” He cleared his throat, wincing at the sting there. It was better than it had been earlier that day, but still. Raw. “I should get going.”</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked, and then he nodded. “If there’s anything else…”</p><p>“No,” Anakin said. “But—” He ran a hand through his hair, backed away a quick step. “Thanks. See you next week, Professor.”</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded again.</p><p>Anakin waited another second before heading out of the office.</p><p>--</p><p>Anakin heard shouting as he entered the hallway. At first, he could only think that he hoped the shouting would be over soon—and he figured that Ahsoka would probably be waiting to complain to him about it later, but as he walked closer to his apartment, he realized that the shouting was coming from <em>their </em>door.</p><p>Anakin stopped. He frowned as he took out his keys. There would be no reason for Ahsoka to be shouting—unless there was something with her girlfriend, which Anakin didn’t think likely…or maybe Ahsoka was just watching something…</p><p>Anakin pushed open the door. “Ahsoka, what—”</p><p>He stopped short.</p><p>Ahsoka and Padmé were standing across from each other. They both looked like they had been crying, Anakin realized.</p><p>“Anakin—” Padmé started. “I was just about to leave.”</p><p>Anakin stared. He looked over Padmé’s shoulder, to where Ahsoka was glaring at the window. Ahsoka looked briefly to Anakin, wiped at her face. Just pressed her lips together. <em>Okay</em>.</p><p>“Okay,” he said.</p><p>But instead of walking in, he walked out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>everyone: you can't get sick getting caught in the rain! </p><p>me: shhh. shhhh. shhh. i do what i want. </p><p>comments, kudos, and/or subscriptions are great if you're willing!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m gonna get coffee—you want anything?”</p><p>“Mm.” Obi-Wan opened his email, closed out of it. He didn’t need to check his email.</p><p>“Okay. With whipped cream?”</p><p>“Mm.” Obi-Wan needed to…stop thinking.</p><p>“…I might kill someone on the way too.”</p><p>“Sounds wonderful.”</p><p>A heavy sigh, and then the <em>thud </em>of books dropped against the desk brought Obi-Wan’s eyes up to Cody, who stared down at him with folded arms. “What was that for?”</p><p>“I was about to ask the same,” Cody replied, grabbing the books. He shelved them with one swift push of his hand and then, turning around, he added, “You’ve got something on your mind?”</p><p>“I—no,” Obi-Wan replied. He rubbed his hands over his face. “No—sorry. Were you saying something?”</p><p>“I was gonna grab coffee from downstairs,” Cody replied. He gestured at the mess around the office. Obi-Wan was dully aware of the dust that had settled over the books in the room. As well as the stacks of papers…notebooks, journals that the library had lent him. “You want?”</p><p>“Ah…” Obi-Wan shook his head. “I’m fine, thank you.”</p><p>“You sure about that?” Cody looked around the office doubtfully.</p><p>“Yes,” Obi-Wan replied, ignoring the pointed look Cody gave him a moment later. “Thank you.”</p><p>“Right.” Cody reached into his jacket pocket for his wallet. “But if you need anything…I’m pretty sure I’ll hear downstairs if you decide to shout.”</p><p>“I won’t be shouting, but thank you for the consideration,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>Cody smiled. “You got it, boss.”</p><p>Obi-Wan managed a smile of his own, and then Cody was gone, leaving him on his own. Obi-Wan looked back down at the screen. He had yet to finish all this grading—and he had been reading the same sentence for the last two minutes, he realized.</p><p>Obi-Wan leaned back and blinked at the ceiling a few times, trying to get the dots out of his vision. Maybe he should have had something a little stronger than the tea he drank this morning…that, combined with the rain that was still drizzling on the windows made the office feel wearier than it actually was.</p><p><em>So much rain</em>, Obi-Wan thought, glancing at the window. That was blistery, blustery New England autumn-slowly-transitioning-into-winter-weather for you. He saw a few students rushing to class, ducking under umbrellas and jackets and upturned backpacks. Obi-Wan glanced over to his own umbrella, which was laid neatly on top of his bag.</p><p>He wondered briefly if Anakin had at least remembered to bring his own umbrella. He was sure he had.</p><p>Obi-Wan turned back around to his laptop, and he was about to resume his work—his <em>work</em>, which required that he not linger on rainy days or umbrellas or blue-eyed students—when his phone rang. For a moment, Obi-Wan thought that it was Anakin. And then he remembered that that was silly, because Anakin didn’t have his phone number.</p><p>He looked down at the screen and realized that it was, of course, someone else.</p><p>“Satine?”</p><p>For a moment, he just heard shuffling—and then, alarmingly, shouting. Obi-Wan looked down at the phone, bewildered, but then he heard Satine’s voice: “<em>Obi-Wan</em>—oh, thank goodness you picked up—I—” There was the sound of a door opening, then closing. Murmurs.</p><p>“Satine?” Obi-Wan repeated. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“I’m—yes, I’m just calling the father—” Satine’s voice was distant for a moment, and then it returned. “Korkie got into an accident.”</p><p>Obi-Wan stilled. He looked out the window, at the lashing rain. “Is he—”</p><p>“He didn’t break anything,” Satine said. “The doctor thinks he might have a mild concussion but…” A breath. “He’s frightened more than anything else. He was.” Another breath. “He was calling for you.”</p><p>The office door suddenly opened, and Obi-Wan turned to find Cody walking in. Cody looked at him once, and he made his movements quieter.</p><p>“He was?” Obi-Wan asked.</p><p>“Yes,” Satine replied. Some more shuffling in the background, and Obi-Wan realized that the sounds were those belonging to a waiting room. Quiet murmurs of other people in the background, the occasional swing of doors.</p><p>“I know you’re working right now—”</p><p>“Where?”</p><p>Satine paused. And then she gave him the name of the hospital. A twenty-minute ride away. Twenty minutes away, his son had been calling for him.</p><p>“I’ll be there,” Obi-Wan said. He looked at Cody, who was now packing things. Cody looked at Obi-Wan again, mouthed, <em>okay? </em>and Obi-Wan was tempted to shake his head, but he just gave a tight nod. “Soon.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Satine said quietly.</p><p>Obi-Wan was tempted to say that there was nothing to thank him for—there was no need to thank him at <em>all</em>, because after all, it was his son who had just gotten into an accident, and what kind of father <em>didn’t </em>see to that, but—but then again.</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded. He remembered that Satine couldn’t see him, so he replied, “I’ll see you two soon.”</p><p>He hung up and looked at Cody, who was still packing.</p><p>“Everything alright?” Cody asked.</p><p>“Not quite,” Obi-Wan replied. He closed his laptop. “I’m sorry, Cody—I have to see to something.”</p><p>“No need to apologize,” Cody said. He nodded at the coffee cup on the desk. “Might wanna take that, though.”</p><p>“Ah. Yes,” Obi-Wan said, taking the cup. He was grateful for how warm it was in his hands. He set it back down to put on his coat, take his bag. “I’m sorry again—just an emergency—”</p><p>“’Course,” Cody replied. He stepped back, pushed open the door for Obi-Wan. “Hope things work out.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Obi-Wan said. He managed another tight smile, but then Cody nodded out to the hallway. That was enough of a signal, and Obi-Wan rushed out of the office. He hardly registered himself walking out of the building or down the rest of campus. He somehow made it to the parking lot finally, and then he was opening the car door, slamming it shut.</p><p>Obi-Wan jammed the key in the ignition. Realized that his hands were shaking, and Obi-Wan squeezed them once over the wheel. <em>Steady</em>.</p><p>He pulled out of the parking lot and made his way to the hospital.</p><p>--</p><p>Obi-Wan found Satine pacing the small waiting room. Her shoulders were drawn in, her fingers hovering near her lips. Her hair had been hastily pulled up, and judging by her clothes, she had just gotten out of the office. Her eyes were distant, but when Obi-Wan walked inside, she looked at him right away.</p><p>“You made it,” she said. “I would have called you earlier, but things were…”</p><p>“I know,” Obi-Wan replied. He glanced around. “Which room…”</p><p>“Follow me,” Satine said. She walked to the other side of the waiting room, and Obi-Wan followed her down a hallway. There were some nurses guiding patients down the hallway, other visitors. Obi-Wan saw a young mother holding hands with a boy whose arm was in a sling.</p><p>They eventually stopped at a door.</p><p>“He might still be asleep,” Satine told Obi-Wan.</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded, and Satine opened the door.</p><p>Korkie was, as Satine had predicted, still asleep. His face was paler than normal, and he looked oddly smaller and younger than his actual age—but then again, Korkie always did when he was sleeping. Obi-Wan doubted that there would ever be a time when he didn’t think that way.</p><p>“When?” Obi-Wan asked as the door closed behind themselves.</p><p>“This morning,” Satine replied quietly.</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at her. “This morning?”</p><p>“I told you,” Satine said. “I would have called you sooner, but things were complicated. Some legal work, and then…” She paused, gave Obi-Wan a halfhearted, apologetic smile. “They usually call the mother first anyways.”</p><p>Obi-Wan told himself he shouldn’t have been surprised—but he found that he was anyways. He just nodded, looked to Korkie.</p><p>“He was riding with his friend,” Satine said after a moment. “Amis.”</p><p>Obi-Wan remembered. A boy with blond hair. Friendly, a longtime friend of Korkie’s. Obi-Wan remembered seeing Korkie get into the car the last weekend they had been together. Quick, bright smiles exchanged between the two of them before Korkie got into the passenger seat.</p><p>“And he’s…”</p><p>“Also in the hospital,” Satine replied. “I spoke to his mother—he’s in a similar condition as Korkie, a few more bruises, but…” She pressed her lips together. “It was another driver. Some idiot who wasn’t paying attention. Came in from the side.”</p><p>Obi-Wan’s blood chilled. He looked at Korkie again. “And the driver?”</p><p>“At least managed to fill out his part of the deal,” Satine replied. She sighed, rubbed a hand over her face. “It’ll be taken care of.”</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded and then, gesturing to the chairs, he said, “You should sit.”</p><p>“Are you?”</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded.</p><p>The two of them sat down. Obi-Wan lowered his bag to the ground, leaned his umbrella against the chair leg.</p><p>After a moment, Satine asked, “And your classes…”</p><p>“I was done for the day,” Obi-Wan replied. “I was only grading.”</p><p>Satine nodded. She wasn’t fully paying attention, Obi-Wan knew, but he didn’t blame her. They both watched Korkie for a little while, and then she said, “I’m glad that you’re here.”</p><p>“I’m glad you called,” Obi-Wan replied, and he meant it. He knew that Satine knew he meant it as well, because she gave him a sad little smile. “I wouldn’t want you or Korkie to have to be alone when things like this happen.”</p><p>Satine nodded.</p><p>And then, after a while, Satine asked, “And are you…doing well? I know that the last few weeks have been…” Her eyes drifted over to Korkie, and Obi-Wan knew that she wasn’t going to finish that sentence. He wouldn’t have wanted her to.</p><p>“I’m well,” Obi-Wan replied. “Things have been mildly busy, but I’m well. And you?”</p><p>“Relatively the same,” Satine replied. She leaned back against her chair. “I think I might be promoted soon.” Her voice was nonchalant, but Obi-Wan knew that there was some relief there. He was glad. He knew how hard she worked.</p><p>“Congratulations,” Obi-Wan said.</p><p>“Thank you,” Satine replied.</p><p>They had just settled back into silence when there was a sudden stir from the bed. A soft whine, and then both Obi-Wan and Satine were up on their feet, making their way to Korkie, who was just blinking open his eyes.</p><p>“Mom?” Korkie’s voice was small, heavy.</p><p>“Here,” Satine said, reaching over. She took Korkie’s hand in hers and smiled. “How do you feel?”</p><p>Korkie blinked sleepily. “Funny,” he replied. He blinked again, and this time, his eyes traveled over to Obi-Wan. He stilled. “Dad?”</p><p>“I came as soon as I could,” Obi-Wan replied. He reached, let his hand fall on Korkie’s shoulder. “Your mother called.”</p><p>Korkie stared. For a moment, he just looked confused—so confused, that Obi-Wan’s chest hurt.</p><p>And then Korkie, his voice still heavy, slightly slurred, asked, “Why’re you here?”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at Satine.</p><p>Satine looked at Korkie. “He’s here because he’s here,” she said quietly.</p><p>Korkie frowned, and Obi-Wan suddenly had the very, very bad feeling that things were not the way Korkie had wanted them to be.</p><p>“Shouldn’t be,” Korkie mumbled, and he started to shift away, but his movements were slow, clumsy. Korkie wound up sinking a little deeper against the pillow.</p><p>“Careful,” Obi-Wan said automatically. <em>Careful</em>, like all the times he had said that when Korkie was running a little too fast, or when Korkie had tried using the stove for the first time. A history of skinned knees and Band-Aids and fond pats of the head were loaded in that one word.</p><p>Korkie just looked at Obi-Wan. “Why’re you here?” he repeated, and his voice was a little clearer now. A little louder.</p><p>“I was worried,” Obi-Wan replied slowly. He became aware of Korkie shifting slowly away, away. “Korkie—”</p><p>“’m okay,” Korkie said, and his shoulder slipped out of Obi-Wan’s hand. “You can go now.”</p><p>“Korkie,” Satine said sharply. “He came from work—”</p><p>“So did you,” Korkie said, and there it was—more steel under that voice, more strength there.</p><p>Satine looked at Obi-Wan.</p><p>Obi-Wan felt cold.</p><p>“You should rest,” Obi-Wan said after a while. He stood up. “I’ll get…water. Korkie?”</p><p>Korkie didn’t reply.</p><p>“Satine?”</p><p>“Water sounds fine,” Satine replied quietly.</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded. He looked at Korkie, but his son was looking away.</p><p>Obi-Wan stepped out of the room and made it down the hallway.</p><p>He found a vending machine eventually, got three water bottles. He punched at the buttons a little harder than he normally would. He watched the machine release the water bottles, and they felt almost warm in Obi-Wan’s hands, even though he knew that they had to actually be cold.</p><p>By the time Obi-Wan walked back into the room, Korkie’s eyes were closed.</p><p>He knew that Korkie wasn’t asleep, but he moved quietly anyways.</p><p>He sat down next to Satine. Handed her a water bottle, set the other one on Korkie’s nightstand.</p><p>Satine looked at Obi-Wan. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.</p><p>Obi-Wan shook his head. Lifted his shoulders.</p><p>They sat in silence for longer. Eventually, Korkie’s fake sleeping turned into real sleep. Deep breaths turning into sighs.</p><p>“You’ll update me on his condition?” Obi-Wan asked after a while.</p><p>“Of course,” Satine replied. She looked at Obi-Wan. “He did call for you, you know. When he was hurt.”</p><p>Obi-Wan managed a slight smile. “You don’t have to lie to me, Satine,” he said quietly.</p><p>“I’m not,” Satine said. She reached over, squeezed Obi-Wan’s hand. Her hand was just as cold as his, he realized. “I wouldn’t lie about this. <em>Never </em>about this.”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked over at Korkie. His face had taken on that too-young quality again.</p><p>“Let me know how he is,” Obi-Wan said after a while. He pulled his hand out of Satine’s.</p><p>Satine only looked sad. But she nodded, and Obi-Wan walked out of the hospital room.</p><p>--</p><p>Obi-Wan didn’t remember getting into the car. He didn’t remember pulling out of the lot, and he certainly didn’t remember pulling into the usual parking lot on campus, but he had. For a while, he just sat in his car.</p><p>The rain pattered against the windows, and Obi-Wan watched as some other cars in the parking lot pulled away. There were already people going home, and Obi-Wan thought he recognized some of his colleagues, but he didn’t bother waving. He leaned back against his seat, turned his eyes up to the roof. He listened to the rain and wondered what might happen if he accidentally fell asleep right here in the lot. He almost started laughing at that—a nonsensical kind of laugh that came from either too many hours awake or too many hours of doing something worse.</p><p>Walking into the classroom or the office wearing the same clothes that he had the day before…well. Obi-Wan supposed that might as well happen to him now.</p><p>He listened to the rain.</p><p>He closed his eyes, and he almost wished he could just fall asleep right then and there, but suddenly, he heard that coolness in Korkie’s voice. Saw the flash of his eyes—<em>his eyes</em>—right before he turned away. He saw Satine’s sad smile, heard “<em>i wouldn’t lie</em>”.</p><p>Obi-Wan scrubbed a hand over his face. Let out a long, shuddery breath. His fingers came away wet.</p><p>The rain continued.</p><p>Obi-Wan opened his eyes, found himself still looking up at the roof.</p><p>Over the rain, he heard other things—a slurred “<em>shouldn’t be here</em>” and a whispered “<em>he did call for you, you know</em>” and his own “<em>you don’t have to lie to me</em>”.</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked a few more times, scrubbed a hand over his face. Ridiculous. He was being ridiculous.</p><p>No, he wasn’t being ridiculous. He wasn’t being ridiculous at all, because his son had just gotten into an accident and then decided that he didn’t want his father present. And Obi-Wan had walked out. <em>He </em>had been the one to walk out, when things were already—</p><p>Obi-Wan slammed a hand down on the wheel. He had meant to just give it a light hit—something to jolt him back awake, but he had pressed harder than he intended, because a loud honk split the air. Obi-Wan sat up quickly, lowered his hand from the wheel and hoped that no one else had heard—</p><p>But then he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and when Obi-Wan looked, he saw a familiar figure making its way across the parking lot.</p><p>And then Anakin was at the window of the passenger side, holding an umbrella and looking almost worried.</p><p>Obi-Wan swallowed. As if this day could get any—</p><p>Anakin knocked on the window.</p><p>Obi-Wan leaned over, lowered the window.</p><p>“Hey,” Anakin said.</p><p>“Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied by way of greeting.</p><p>Anakin blinked a few times. He was dry, for once. Thanks to the umbrella that he had got on his own. “So, funny story,” Anakin said. His voice was lower than usual, probably from the aftermath of the cold—but Obi-Wan noticed that Anakin’s cheeks were a little flushed, as though he had been running. Obi-Wan wondered who would be running right now.</p><p>“Funny story,” Anakin repeated. “I went home and decided to come back here to get some work done instead, and I was just considering ways to procrastinate going home when I hear my calm, coolheaded professor <em>honk</em> at me.”</p><p>Obi-Wan cursed himself for not just driving back to his apartment. He should have just driven back to his apartment—why did he return to the school—</p><p>“I wasn’t…that wasn’t—” Obi-Wan shook his head. “I’m sorry, Anakin. That was an accident.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“It really was.”</p><p>“No, I believe you,” Anakin replied. He leaned against the window. “But that still doesn’t explain why my calm, coolheaded professor’s all alone in the parking lot.” He looked at Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan felt both cold and warm at how Anakin’s expression softened. “So I guess what I’m asking is—what’re you doing all alone in the parking lot, Professor?”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Note the rating change.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Anakin!”</p><p>Anakin heard rapid footsteps behind him, but he didn’t stop. He stopped by the elevator, jammed the button to go down. The elevator was stuck on the lobby. He waited three seconds before deciding that he didn’t feel like waiting after all.</p><p>“Anakin!” Padmé called again, but Anakin was already turning around, walking for the staircase. He shoved open the door, hoping that it would close behind him, but no, the door was too heavy—he heard it catch, and then footsteps followed him down the stairs.</p><p>He made it down to the lobby without tripping over himself, which, given the luck he had today, was a miracle. He pushed open the door, was met with damp, cold air that smelled like rain would be coming again. Stupid Massachusetts weather. Stupid Massachusetts Novembers.</p><p>“You can go back,” Padmé said behind him. “Just—I told you I was going to leave anyways.”</p><p>“Nice of you,” Anakin said. He reached into his bag, fumbling for the umbrella in case it started raining. He took his not-tripping-down-the-stairs as the only good luck that he would get for the rest of the day. He couldn’t find the umbrella at first. “C’mon…”</p><p>He rooted his hand in deeper, thought that he found the umbrella, but no. His fingers brushed against something velvet, something small. Anakin tugged his hand out. He didn’t need to look for his umbrella, he decided.</p><p>“Ahsoka told me you’d still be at school,” Padmé was saying. “If I’d known that you’d be coming…”</p><p>“That I’d be coming to my own apartment?” Anakin asked, yanking the zipper shut louder than he meant to. “Come on, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”</p><p>He looked at Padmé. She had her arms wound around herself, hands tucked around her waist. She must have just come back from a work meeting, Anakin realized, because she was wearing more formal clothes this time around. Grey coat, dark blouse.</p><p>“Don’t talk to me like that,” Padmé said. She looked up at Anakin, and he expected anger or annoyance—but all he found was a weariness that simultaneously made Anakin ashamed and frustrated. “Okay? I’m leaving.”</p><p>“Good,” Anakin said. “<em>Good</em>.”</p><p>Padmé just looked at him a moment longer before walking past him. Her head was lifted high—of course it was, but Anakin saw her lift a hand to her face, and he suddenly imagined Padmé angrily swiping at her face, and Anakin turned away before he could think any more of it.</p><p>A moment later, he heard the door open again—and then Anakin asked, “So what was that all about?”</p><p>Ahsoka didn’t say anything.</p><p>When Anakin turned around, he found that Ahsoka’s eyes were a little red, and she had thrown on a jacket that probably wasn’t thick enough to block out the cold. She had her hands sticking in her pockets, her jaw set and eyes trained on where Padmé had been a second ago. Which didn’t make sense, because Anakin didn’t think Ahsoka had come down until just now, but…</p><p>Anakin sighed. “Never mind,” he said. “Just go inside. It’s cold.”</p><p>He started to push Ahsoka inside, but she batted his hand away. “I was really mad at her,” she said.</p><p>Anakin paused. He looked down at Ahsoka.</p><p>“Don’t be mad at her,” he said after a while. “You’re the only one who actually talks to her these days.”</p><p>“Yeah, but why is that?” Ahsoka asked. She looked at Anakin, her face sad, eyes searching his face for an answer that Anakin knew that he probably wouldn’t give. As though knowing that, Ahsoka shook her head. “I’m mad at you too, you know. Like, <em>really </em>mad.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Why do you think?” Ahsoka asked, kicking at the sidewalk. “I just lost both of my friends. And that fucking <em>sucks</em>.” She looked at Anakin, and she looked less angry than she did tired. “And I know you’ve got your stuff to work out with her—I <em>do</em>. And I <em>know </em>it’s not easy—I don’t <em>expect </em>it to be—but it’s just…”</p><p>Ahsoka let out a breath. “It fucking sucks,” she repeated. “Okay?” She blinked a few times, stuffed her hands deeper into her pockets. “Me, going back between the two of you like I have to choose a fucking <em>side</em>—”</p><p>“Who says you have to pick a side?” Anakin asked. “You never had to—”</p><p>“Yeah, I did,” Ahsoka said quietly. She lowered her head, blew out a breath. Looked to the side, not meeting Anakin’s gaze. “I did. A lot of times. And she knows it, too.”</p><p>Anakin’s heart sank. “Ahsoka—you don’t have to pick sides.”</p><p>“Don’t I?” Ahsoka asked. She lifted her shoulders, rubbed a hand over her face. Her eyes were less red now, but her voice was still rough. “I think…she wanted to tell me about her leaving the country herself.”</p><p>“And…”</p><p>“And I told her I already knew,” Ahsoka said hollowly. “You know. She didn’t even tell me that she was in town—did she really think that I would trust her to tell me <em>that</em>?”</p><p>“Did you know that she didn’t actually reach out to me about this kind of stuff?” Ahsoka asked, looking at Anakin this time. At Anakin’s silence, she shrugged again. “When it was you and her and…everything else.”</p><p>“Ahsoka…”</p><p>“She was my friend too, okay?” Ahsoka said. “Like, I know that I’m not…I didn’t grow up with you guys. I was dumb little freshman who couldn’t leave you two alone.”</p><p>“You were never a dumb little freshman.”</p><p>“Not dumb,” Ahsoka conceded after a moment. “But you guys—” She huffed out a breath. “I know it’s hard. It’s <em>hard</em> for you, and it’s hard for her, and it’s hard for everyone, including me, and that feels selfish, so.”</p><p>She kicked at the sidewalk again. “Fucking sucks,” she repeated, but there was no actual heat in her voice anymore. “Whatever. I’ll get over it.”</p><p>Ahsoka walked forward, pushed past Anakin. Hands still in her pockets, head lifted high.</p><p>“Where are you going?” Anakin asked.</p><p>“Somewhere,” Ahsoka replied. “Just…” She gestured to the apartment building. “Place stinks like bad feelings. By the time I come back, I’ll be over it.”</p><p>“You said that before,” Anakin said.</p><p>“Yeah, well,” Ahsoka shrugged. She turned around, her shoulders bunching up. “You want anything? I might go to the corner store.”</p><p>“No,” Anakin replied.</p><p>“Okay.” And just like that, Ahsoka walked away.</p><p>Anakin watched her until she disappeared around the corner, and he decided that he didn’t want to go back to the apartment either.</p><p>--</p><p>That was how he wound up going to his school’s library. He had his laptop open for an hour before he realized that he wasn’t actually getting any work done—just checking his emails and jumping in between too many open tabs. When Anakin actually lifted his head again, he found that it was already dark outside, and the rain had started up again. Students were packing up their things, heading out for an early dinner or for another class.</p><p>Anakin took that as his cue to leave, too. He pushed himself out of his seat, packed his things. He found the umbrella sitting in his backpack—thankfully not the small box that he had yet to actually put away—and walked out of the library.</p><p>That was also how he found Obi-Wan only a few minutes later.</p><p>So Anakin stood at the passenger side of Obi-Wan’s car, umbrella propped up above him as he waited for his professor’s response to his question. <em>What’re you doing? </em></p><p>“I’m not allowed to have a moment to myself?” Obi-Wan asked, and Anakin could have sworn that his voice was deeper than normal. A little hoarse, too, and for some reason, that made Anakin want to stay.</p><p>“Well…you are,” Anakin said, “but it’s…” He looked around the parking lot. “Kind of creepy when you’re the only one here.”</p><p>“Well, <em>you’re </em>here.”</p><p>“Fair.”</p><p>A beat, and then Anakin asked, “Is everything okay?”</p><p>“I could ask the same of you,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>Anakin tried to smile. He didn’t think it worked though, because the look Obi-Wan gave him was almost knowing.</p><p>So that was why Anakin asked, “Can I…”</p><p>Obi-Wan unlocked the door, pushed it open.</p><p>Anakin closed his umbrella and slipped inside before he could get any more rain on himself. He closed the door quickly, shoving his umbrella back into his backpack. “Thanks.”</p><p>“You’re welcome,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>Anakin looked over at Obi-Wan again. His eyes were tired, glasses a little crooked.</p><p>“So,” Anakin said. “Who’s going first?”</p><p>“Who’s going…” Obi-Wan shook his head, looked down.</p><p>“What?” Anakin asked. “You look miserable, and I’m…”</p><p>“Fine?” Obi-Wan suggested, voice monotone.</p><p>“Absolutely.”</p><p>“Mm.”</p><p>They both looked out into the rain. The sky grew steadily darker, inkier as the rain fell harder. A single street lamp was their only actual source of light.</p><p>“So are you?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Fine,” Obi-Wan repeated. He wasn’t looking at Anakin.</p><p>Anakin watched Obi-Wan for a second before turning back to the window. “I said <em>you </em>were the one who looked miserable, not me,” he said.</p><p>“I was being polite,” Obi-Wan replied. “You look miserable, too.”</p><p>“Ha.” Anakin settled his hands on his lap, tilted his head back against the seat. He thought of Ahsoka, who might or might not be back at their apartment. She could be at Trace’s, and one part of Anakin hoped that she actually was, and another part…he had told Ahsoka that he didn’t want her to pick sides, and yet—</p><p>Anakin thought of Padmé walking away, head held high. Work clothes. <em>Leaving the country</em>, a ring sitting in a box sitting at the bottom of his backpack like some forgotten thing that just took up space and blocked him from getting things that mattered like his umbrella.</p><p>“You know Padmé,” Anakin suddenly said.</p><p>“We’re friends,” Obi-Wan replied.</p><p>“No—I know that,” Anakin said. He didn’t know why he was talking. Or if he should be talking. Especially about this. But the rain was coming down, and the ring was still at the bottom of his backpack, and Ahsoka was walking away to a different apartment probably. “She’s just—she’s my ex. Fiancée. Ex fiancée.”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at him.</p><p>“It happened a while ago,” Anakin clarified, as thought that made things feel better. He shifted against the seat. “But she’s leaving. And things are changing. And…” Anakin thought of Ahsoka walking away from him, her hands tucked in her pockets. “Turns out I can be a shitty person to our mutual friends.”</p><p>Anakin turned to Obi-Wan. “Your turn.”</p><p>“What did you mean by that?” Obi-Wan asked quietly.</p><p>“What did I mean about what?”</p><p>“Being a bad person.”</p><p>Anakin didn’t know what he found more endearing—the fact that Obi-Wan had actually heard him or the fact that Obi-Wan didn’t repeat <em>shitty</em>.</p><p>“I mean,” Anakin said, shifting against the seat again, “tunnel vision.” He tapped a finger on the armrest between them. “Now no more questions—your turn. Why you’re miserable and sitting in the middle of a parking lot when you should be out of here.”</p><p>At first, Obi-Wan didn’t say anything. He just looked at Anakin, grey-blue eyes looking so intently at him that Anakin was tempted to look away. But he decided not to—Anakin looked back at Obi-Wan for as long as he could, long enough to realize that Obi-Wan’s lashes were darker than he expected them to be.</p><p>“My son got into an accident,” Obi-Wan said at last.</p><p>Anakin remembered a boy with auburn hair and blue eyes stepping into a coffee shop. “Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry—is he…”</p><p>“He’ll be alright,” Obi-Wan said, although his gaze had gone a little distant now. “Minor concussion. A reckless…” He didn’t finish the sentence, just cleared his throat and looked away.</p><p>Anakin wished that he hadn’t.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Anakin repeated. He stared down at his lap. “You should probably go see—”</p><p>“I did,” Obi-Wan said quietly.</p><p>Anakin looked at Obi-Wan again. His eyes had drifted shut, head tilted against the headrest.</p><p>The silence told Anakin just how that visit had gone.</p><p>“He’ll…” Anakin started to say, stopped. <em>Come around</em>, he meant to add, but he wasn’t sure if that was something that he was supposed to say. If that was even his place. If he had a place here to begin with.</p><p>Obi-Wan opened his eyes, turned his head so that he’d actually be looking at Anakin.</p><p>They regarded each other steadily.</p><p>“And your friend…” Obi-Wan’s voice drifted too.</p><p>Anakin smiled halfheartedly. “That’s something I’m working on.”</p><p>“Well…” Obi-Wan brought a hand up to his face, swiped at his eyes from underneath his glasses. “I suppose that’s the best we could do.” He lowered his hand, his glasses more crooked than they were before.</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin said quietly. And then, looking at Obi-Wan’s crooked glasses, he reached forward.</p><p>Obi-Wan leaned back for a moment, but Anakin just gave him a halfhearted smile. “Glasses,” he said, and he reached up. Started to adjust Obi-Wan’s glasses back so that they weren’t crooked—tried not to actually touch Obi-Wan’s face.</p><p>But then Obi-Wan shifted—just the slightest, and Anakin’s thumbs brushed against Obi-Wan’s cheeks.</p><p>Obi-Wan’s eyes closed, and to both Anakin’s surprise and relief—<em>relief</em>—Obi-Wan leaned into Anakin’s touch. When Obi-Wan didn’t pull away, Anakin lowered his hands from the man’s glasses. Tentatively shifted his hands down to the side of Obi-Wan’s face, brushed fingers against his cheekbones, down to his jaw.</p><p>Obi-Wan opened his eyes. “Anakin,” he said quietly. Hoarsely. “Please…”</p><p>“Please what?” Anakin asked, his voice just as quiet. They were silent to the rest of the world.</p><p>Obi-Wan sighed, dropped his head forward.</p><p>“Do you want me to stop?” Anakin asked. “I can—”</p><p>“No.” Obi-Wan lifted his head. “Anakin…” His voice was strained, hoarse.</p><p>Anakin brushed his thumb over Obi-Wan’s cheek again, brushed right under his eye. “Here.”</p><p>They didn’t say anything.</p><p>They didn’t have to, not as Anakin pushed himself forward, found Obi-Wan’s lips. Found Obi-Wan’s open mouth, found Obi-Wan’s hands reach up to his shoulders, then to the side of his throat, hands warm. Light.</p><p>Anakin sighed against Obi-Wan’s lips. He breathed in that tea-books-something-else-smell that felt familiar and warm and seemed to invade every bit of Anakin’s senses.</p><p>“Come here,” Anakin whispered, lowering his hands to Obi-Wan’s shirt. “Come <em>here</em>—”</p><p>He was relieved and thrilled to feel Obi-Wan <em>respond</em>, felt Obi-Wan press back against him, felt Obi-Wan’s hands skate down to Anakin’s shirt. Anakin’s head was spinning as he felt those warm, gentle hands skirt down from his chest, to his stomach…</p><p>Then they broke for air, both breathing hard, breathing too fast. Anakin looked at Obi-Wan—his tousled hair, already slightly swollen lips because <em>Anakin had done that</em>.</p><p>“Wait,” Obi-Wan said, and Anakin’s heart began to sink—until Obi-Wan added, “Not here.”</p><p>Anakin looked around. The area was too dark, and there still wasn’t anyone around, but still. A parking lot—a <em>university </em>parking lot…even though it killed him, Anakin nodded. He nodded and nodded and nodded as Obi-Wan started up the car, and Anakin became painfully aware of his body as the engine rumbled to life.</p><p>As Obi-Wan started out of the parking lot, Anakin took the opportunity to glance down at his phone.</p><p>No calls, no texts.</p><p>Anakin decided that was a good sign.</p><p>--</p><p>The drive was both longer and shorter than Anakin had anticipated. At every red light, every pause in the road, Anakin was tempted to just tell Obi-Wan to pull over so they could resume what they started—and as though sensing that, Obi-Wan would look at Anakin, and each time Obi-Wan looked at Anakin, there was a quiet kind of surprise that Anakin didn’t know how to interpret.</p><p>They eventually stopped at an apartment complex.</p><p>Neither of them said anything, not as they walked out of the car. Or as they walked up the stairs. Anakin was pretty sure they could have used the elevator, but no—fine, if Obi-Wan wanted him to wait for a little while longer, then Anakin would.</p><p>When Obi-Wan started to unlock his door, Anakin was hit by a wave of déjà vu: watching Obi-Wan unlock the door to his office, observing his profile and the back of his neck with a quiet fascination that only came with wondering how they would feel under his hands again.</p><p>“Got it,” Obi-Wan said just as he pushed open the door. He paused, turned to Anakin.</p><p>“Well?” Anakin asked. “What are you waiting for?”</p><p>Obi-Wan dropped his gaze, gestured inside.</p><p>Anakin walked in. He was struck by how nothing had changed in the apartment—not the books, not the furniture. Not even the plants, he was pretty sure. He only had a second to observe the interior before he turned around, found Obi-Wan closing the door behind themselves.</p><p>“Well?” Obi-Wan asked.</p><p>Anakin slipped his backpack off. Took off his jacket. He noticed Obi-Wan watching him, and Anakin made sure to take greater care in folding over his jacket than necessary.</p><p>And then Anakin walked towards Obi-Wan, tugged his coat off. Obi-Wan let it slide off easily, his eyes still fixed on Anakin’s face.</p><p>“There we go,” Anakin said quietly.</p><p>“There we go,” Obi-Wan echoed.</p><p>They both paused.</p><p>Then Anakin dipped his head down, just enough to brush his lips against Obi-Wan’s. Tentative, slower than the last kiss. He heard and felt Obi-Wan’s breath catch—and then Obi-Wan was the one tugging at Anakin, leading him away from the door, leading him through the rest of the apartment. Leading him to a familiar bedroom, filled with books by people like Stephen King and Jane Austen and Chinua Achebe. A different coat sitting over a chair, but the same everything else.</p><p>Obi-Wan pushed Anakin into the bed—and Anakin let himself fall with barely a sound. He looked up at Obi-Wan, felt a rush as Obi-Wan lowered himself down to meet Anakin’s already open mouth. Anakin rocked backwards, one hand digging deep through Obi-Wan’s hair, the other keeping himself upright.</p><p>“Too many clothes,” Obi-Wan murmured. “Off. Now.”</p><p>Anakin nodded, broke himself away from Obi-Wan to take off his pants, underwear as Obi-Wan reached for the lube. Obi-Wan pushed Anakin back again, this time hard enough for Anakin to actually lie flat on his back.</p><p>Anakin looked up at Obi-Wan, who was pulling off his shirt. Off went the sweater, the button-up. Anakin started to sit up, reached to help with the pants, but Obi-Wan pushed him away again.</p><p>“Patience,” Obi-Wan said, and a shiver ran up Anakin’s spine. He let himself fall back on his elbows, watched Obi-Wan take off the last of his clothes. Anakin shivered again at the sight of Obi-Wan’s flushed cock, felt his own twitch as Obi-Wan stepped towards him.</p><p>When Obi-Wan came close enough, Anakin reached for him—but Obi-Wan had other plans. He missed Anakin’s mouth, and a moment later, Anakin felt warm lips brush against the side of his neck. Softly, gently at first, and then a more insistent bite-suck-bite that made Anakin whimper.</p><p>“Need you,” Anakin whispered, tangling his fingers in Obi-Wan’s hair. “Need you to fuck me <em>right </em>now or I <em>swear</em>—<em>oh</em>—” He dug his face into the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck as a finger stroked his entrance, slow, teasing.</p><p>“Were you saying something?” Obi-Wan asked, his voice a low rumble to Anakin’s ears.</p><p>“I was saying…nothing,” Anakin panted as Obi-Wan’s finger circled, closer and closer to the actual entrance. Anakin’s cock was leaking with precum now, and he was tempted to reach down, either to shove Obi-Wan into himself or to take care of his own cock, he wasn’t sure. He just <em>wanted—</em></p><p>“Patience,” Obi-Wan repeated, his lips finding Anakin’s throat. Lowering down to his shoulder, then to his collarbone. “Surely, you can wait just a little longer, can’t you?”</p><p>“Been waiting…since the first day,” Anakin whispered, closing his eyes as Obi-Wan’s finger circled faster. Anakin let out a small whine. Obi-Wan hadn’t even put it <em>in </em>yet—he was being such a—</p><p>“Fucking <em>tease</em>,” Anakin said.</p><p>Obi-Wan hummed against Anakin’s collarbone. “Am I, now?”</p><p>“You are,” Anakin said hotly. “Fucking—coming into class wearing—” He cut himself off with a short cry as he felt the first finger <em>finally </em>enter. “<em>Fuck</em>—”</p><p>“Language,” Obi-Wan murmured. Anakin didn’t think that was supposed to make him harder—didn’t think that was supposed to make him somehow want Obi-Wan even more, but it did. Just like it had in the car, only that had been sad. This wasn’t sad.</p><p>Anakin dropped his head back as Obi-Wan worked him open. Anakin started to push himself against Obi-Wan just slightly, just to get more—just as Obi-Wan added another finger and made Anakin let out half-whispered, half-shouted “<em>fuck</em>”.</p><p>“I don’t remember you being this foulmouthed our first time,” Obi-Wan said, his lips lowering down to Anakin’s chest. Skating down his stomach. Fingers still pumping steadily, making Anakin twist and grip the sheets.</p><p>Anakin tried to come up with a clever response, but his thoughts were incoherent, the sounds he made no better. He managed to look down at Obi-Wan, hair still so disheveled from Anakin’s fingers. Blue eyes looking up to meet his.</p><p>“Need you,” Anakin repeated. Trying to push against Obi-Wan’s fingers. “Need you to actually…<em>ah</em>—fuck me—”</p><p>“Now?”</p><p>Anakin let out a frustrated groan. “<em>Yes</em>, now, before I…” Anakin dropped his head back against the sheets, breathed hard. “Fucking <em>lose </em>it—”</p><p>He felt Obi-Wan laugh—<em>felt </em>it, the quiet vibrations from near his hips. And then the fingers pulled out, and when Anakin looked up, Obi-Wan was reapplying lube, this time to his cock. Catching him watching, Obi-Wan’s lips quirked up into a half smile. Anakin didn’t have time to think about what that half smile might have meant—not as Obi-Wan lined himself up with Anakin. Not as Anakin felt Obi-Wan push inside, actually felt <em>him</em>.</p><p>“Good?”</p><p>“Good,” Anakin managed. His hands scrambled to hold onto something. He wanted to take his cock more than anything, but as his hands started, Obi-Wan was batting them away. Pushing Anakin’s hands to the side, Obi-Wan’s fingers interlocking with Anakin’s own. Anakin didn’t even get to complain—he didn’t want to complain, because Obi-Wan’s hands were warm and held onto him like he was worth something.</p><p>Anakin lifted his hips just slightly, just enough to meet Obi-Wan’s pace. Obi-Wan started to say something, but it was lost as he let go of Anakin’s hands, brought them to his hips instead. Held onto them hard enough to bruise, and the image of seeing Obi-Wan leave his mark there made Anakin move a little faster, move with more <em>want</em>, because he <em>wanted</em> so bad—</p><p>“Doing so well,” Obi-Wan whispered. “Anakin…”</p><p>“’wan…” Anakin said tightly. He looked up, met Obi-Wan’s gaze. Obi-Wan’s face was more flushed now, his expression more concentrated, more determined as his thrusts quickened. Anakin reached for Obi-Wan again, hands snaking up his arms. Dragging him close. Needing him to be close.</p><p>“Only a little longer,” Obi-Wan said, his breath tickling the side of Anakin’s neck. “Just a little longer, Anakin…”</p><p>Anakin nodded. It was all he could do as Obi-Wan’s thrusts grew—and <em>fuck</em>, Obi-Wan was really pounding into him now, his breaths growing harsher and quicker in time with his hips. Anakin swung a leg over Obi-Wan’s back, his muscles slackening and then tightening each time Obi-Wan slammed into him. Each time Anakin felt himself build, heard Obi-Wan’s grunts and sighs as they moved together.</p><p>“I’m gonna…” Anakin whimpered, digging his nails into Obi-Wan’s shoulders. “Obi-Wan—”</p><p>“That’s it,” Obi-Wan said, digging his face into the side of Anakin’s neck.</p><p>“Gonna come,” Anakin said tightly. “Can’t—”</p><p>Obi-Wan just laughed into Anakin’s neck, and that was did it, in the end. One soft laugh, and Anakin came. Shuddered, twisting, his lips hungrily searching for Obi-Wan’s as he felt Obi-Wan’s hips stutter, just a few more times—</p><p>He felt Obi-Wan’s warmth a moment later, relished in the sticky mess of both of them as Obi-Wan slumped over him, hands searching for something to latch onto. Anakin gladly let himself be that something.</p><p>“Here,” Anakin whispered, carding his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair. Brushing his numb lips over Obi-Wan’s forehead. “Here…”</p><p>--</p><p>In the end, they were too tired to move. They cleaned up the best they could—didn’t say a word as they did.</p><p>In the end, they slid under the covers. Anakin wrapped an arm around Obi-Wan, dragged him in close. He thought he felt Obi-Wan stiffen, but he pretended not to notice as he dragged the blanket over themselves.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>my only caution is that well...things are going to get complicated from here.</p><p>** a caveat: please don't actually sleep with your professor in real life! (at least, not while still enrolled in their class!) </p><p>comments, kudos, and subscriptions are lovely if you have the time to give them!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Obi-Wan woke feeling uncomfortably warm.</p><p>He dragged his eyes open and quickly realized why that was.</p><p>Anakin’s arm was draped over his stomach, his head just slightly tilted towards Obi-Wan. Even in the semi-dimness of the bedroom, Obi-Wan could make out the slight swelling of his lips. Anakin sighed, shifting closer.</p><p>Anakin, who—Obi-Wan remembered it all now. Sitting in the car, letting Anakin in—<em>why had he let Anakin in? </em>Talking—<em>why did they have to talk? </em>Anakin adjusting Obi-Wan’s glasses—<em>why did he let Anakin do that? </em></p><p>And then kissing. Obi-Wan remembered kissing. Anakin had kissed him first. Obi-Wan had kissed back.</p><p>Coming here. Kissing again.</p><p>And then…</p><p>And <em>then</em>…</p><p>Obi-Wan carefully rolled out of Anakin’s grip. He had meant to be quiet, but Anakin let out a soft sound of disappointment. Obi-Wan stilled as Anakin’s eyes fluttered open.</p><p>At first, neither of them said anything. Neither of them moved.</p><p>“Morning,” Anakin said at last.</p><p>“Good morning,” Obi-Wan managed.</p><p>Anakin hummed a little, buried half his face into the pillow. Obi-Wan thought that Anakin had fallen back asleep, but then he lifted his head out of the pillow. Sat up, the sheets puddling to Anakin’s hips. Obi-Wan tried not to look at the sharp planes of Anakin’s stomach. Or any lower than that.</p><p>“So,” Anakin said.</p><p>“So,” Obi-Wan replied. He looked away, started searching for his shirt. A shirt. He was too exposed, and he could still feel the warmth of where Anakin’s arm had been wrapped around him. Obi-Wan reached for his glasses first, pushed them up to his face. The mattress creaked a little underneath him as Obi-Wan felt movement, and then he heard the rustle of clothes.</p><p>Obi-Wan turned around slightly, just enough to glimpse Anakin throwing on his shirt.</p><p>Obi-Wan turned back around. He pushed himself off the bed, reached for his own. He tugged on his pants first, then shirt. Missed the buttons at least twice before realizing such. Obi-Wan lowered himself back onto the bed, running his mind over the other events of last night. What they had done—what <em>he </em>had done…</p><p>Obi-Wan pushed a hand up to his face, ignoring that he was probably smudging his glasses. He didn’t care so much about that part as he did about the fact that he had slept with <em>Anakin</em>. Again.</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>Obi-Wan stiffened. He turned around to Anakin, who was sitting cross-legged on the other side of the bed. He looked on with enough concern that somehow made Obi-Wan feel better and worse about the situation.</p><p>“I’m alright,” Obi-Wan replied. “I should be asking <em>you </em>that question.”</p><p>“Never been better,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan winced. “’s that bad?”</p><p>“Is that bad,” Obi-Wan repeated. He stood up, ignoring the soreness in his muscles. He ignored how Anakin got up too. He wanted Anakin to sit back down—or maybe he wanted Anakin to walk out of the apartment. He wanted to rewind the clock and <em>not open the car door—</em></p><p>“I would think the situation is bad, yes,” Obi-Wan said. He found his phone at the desk, turned it upwards so that he could check the time. There were some messages waiting for him—one of them from Satine. Obi-Wan looked down at the screen, not quite reading the message before turning it back down on the desk.</p><p>“It’s not that bad,” Anakin said. “We just…you know. It happened.”</p><p>“It happened, and it shouldn’t have,” Obi-Wan replied. He pocketed his phone. It felt heavier than it had before.</p><p>“Huh.”</p><p>Obi-Wan turned around. Anakin was still standing near the bed, one hand resting near his pocket, the other rubbing at the back of his neck. Anakin’s head was slightly lowered, his curls getting in the way of his eyes.</p><p>“Okay,” Anakin said. He looked at Obi-Wan, his hand dropping to his side. “So why shouldn’t it have happened?”</p><p>“A plethora of reasons,” Obi-Wan replied. He walked back to the bed, yanking at the covers. He yanked harder than necessary, and one of the sheets just came loose. Obi-Wan walked to the other end, tugging it back into place. Anakin, to his annoyance-confusion-surprise, moved to the opposite end to do the same. “You don’t have to—”</p><p>“Too late,” Anakin replied, taking care of the other end of the sheet. He looked at Obi-Wan. “Or do you just wanna strip these? I don’t know when you’re planning to change these guys, but knowing you…”</p><p>“<em>Knowing </em>me…” Obi-Wan muttered.</p><p>“Well, yeah, knowing you,” Anakin replied. He was picking up a pillow. Flipping it over, examining the pillowcase. “All neat and tidy and put-together—wouldn’t see you as the type of person to <em>debauch </em>yourself entirely…”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked back down at the sheets, then looked at Anakin again. He was smirking a little.</p><p>“Don’t do that,” Obi-Wan said sharply.</p><p>“Do what?”</p><p>“You know exactly what.”</p><p>“Afraid you’re going to have to get a little more specific than that.”</p><p>Obi-Wan stared. Then, grabbing one of the pillows, he threw it as hard as he could at Anakin. Obi-Wan felt ridiculous for doing so almost immediately—and he felt even more ridiculous when the pillow fell back to the bed with a soft <em>thump</em>. Still, when Anakin looked at him, Obi-Wan asked, “Don’t you understand the situation we’re in?”</p><p>Anakin picked up the pillow. “Well…”</p><p>He fluffed the pillow a few times, propped it up against the bed. “Let’s just run through the events. We talked, and then talking turned into kissing, and then kissing turned into <em>this</em>.” He gestured at the space between them. “And I said yes, and I’m pretty sure I meant it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”</p><p>Anakin paused. “And then I guess there’s the fact that you’re my professor—”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, exasperated. “<em>Yes</em>, there happens to be that <em>incredibly </em>significant aspect of what happened last night.”</p><p>“Well…” Anakin repeated. He shrugged, holding up a hand and ticking off fingers as he continued, “The semester will be over soon. And you said it yourself—everything’s graded blind. And it’s not like you fucked me because I’m trying to get good grades.”</p><p>“That’s beside the point.”</p><p>“Is it?”</p><p>“It <em>is</em>,” Obi-Wan said in a hard voice. He walked back to the desk, leaning just the slightest against the edge.</p><p>Anakin dropped a hand against the bed. Drummed his finger once against the mattress before saying, “It’s not like I’m a kid. I mean—sound mind, body, whatever the saying is.”</p><p>“That isn’t the problem,” Obi-Wan said wearily. “You know it isn’t.”</p><p>Anakin was quiet. He looked down at the bed, and Obi-Wan waited for a response—maybe a protest, but then a phone that wasn’t Obi-Wan’s rang.</p><p>Anakin started. “That’s…” He dug his hand into his pocket, tugged out his phone. Obi-Wan noticed Anakin’s eyebrows furrow together briefly, then he tapped on the screen. The ringing stopped, and Anakin lifted his phone to his ear. “Hey.”</p><p>Obi-Wan dropped his hands from the edge of the desk. He started for the door—he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Make tea. Or make coffee. No, he didn’t drink coffee. Maybe he should start, because his head hurt, and he was tired.</p><p>He had just wrapped his hand around the handle when he heard quick footsteps behind him, and then felt a hand grab at his wrist.</p><p>Obi-Wan turned around. Pulled his wrist insistently out of Anakin’s hand. Anakin just looked at him for a moment before stepping back. His tone unchanging, Anakin said, “Yeah. I’m fine. Just stayed over at a friend’s.”</p><p>Obi-Wan pushed open the door. He closed it behind himself.</p><p>--</p><p>In the end, Obi-Wan made tea. He stood at the counter, opened his texts. Korkie would be going home today. Obi-Wan read the message twice before setting his phone back down. Satine hadn’t asked him to come visit, and Obi-Wan didn’t think that Korkie would want to see him anyways. Not after yesterday…</p><p>He reached for his mug, glad for the sudden heat.</p><p>When the door opened, Obi-Wan didn’t look up.</p><p>He heard quiet footsteps, and then, “You made tea.”</p><p>Obi-Wan gestured to where he knew the other mug was sitting at the opposite end of the counter. “If you’d like some.”</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>Obi-Wan risked a quick glance upwards. Anakin held the mug between his hands. He was leaning against the counter too, his posture casual and loose. Obi-Wan spied a small red-purple bruise on the side of Anakin’s neck, and Obi-Wan forced himself to look back down at his tea.</p><p>“Your friend was looking for you?” Obi-Wan asked at last, bringing the mug to his lips. He didn’t actually taste the tea.</p><p>“Yeah. Roommate,” Anakin replied. He didn’t offer much more of an explanation except, “But you heard me—I just told her I stayed over at someone else’s.” He drank from his tea, too. “I didn’t tell her about you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”</p><p>Obi-Wan found that he couldn’t lie to that. He just nodded. Then, setting his mug back down on the counter, he said, “We need to make some things clear.”</p><p>“Authoritative,” Anakin commented. When Obi-Wan looked at him, Anakin lifted up a hand. “Okay, sorry. Go ahead.”</p><p>“Firstly, it shouldn’t have happened.”</p><p>“As you so love to remind me,” Anakin said, lifting his mug.</p><p>“Hush,” Obi-Wan said. “Secondly, no more smart quips about what happened.”</p><p>“You think I’m smart?” Anakin smiled a little, first at Obi-Wan and then back to his mug.</p><p>“Beside the point,” Obi-Wan said, focusing his attention on something else. His attention landed on Anakin’s hands instead. That wasn’t much of an improvement. “And thirdly…”</p><p>“You don’t want it to happen again?”</p><p>Obi-Wan lifted his head. Anakin had stopped smiling now—or at least, stopped smiling in the small knowing way that he had just a few moments ago. But catching Obi-Wan watching him, a corner of Anakin’s lips twitched upwards again. “Did I guess correctly?”</p><p>“It…” Obi-Wan pushed his mug onto the counter. He had drunk most of it anyways. “Shouldn’t happen again. Even despite all the…reasons you pointed out earlier.”</p><p>“They were pretty good reasons though.”</p><p>Obi-Wan took the mug to the sink. He turned on the faucet, ignoring how he knew exactly where Anakin was and could strangely, scarily picture the exact expression on Anakin’s face. He ran the mug under warm water, watching the last dregs color the inside of the mug a paler version of the orange-brown from his tea.</p><p>Obi-Wan heard more footsteps towards himself. And then Anakin was at his side—not close enough for them to bump shoulders, but still close enough for Obi-Wan to feel his warmth. The same warmth that Obi-Wan had felt draped over his stomach upon waking.</p><p>“Listen,” Anakin said. “It’s not like I want <em>this </em>to be a whole thing either.”</p><p>Obi-Wan blinked. He looked at Anakin.</p><p>Anakin was looking down at his mug. “Pretty sure you kind of knew it from our…other time.” He reached for the faucet, flicked on the water. “I’m not looking for anything serious <em>and </em>long-term, if <em>that’s </em>what you’re worried about.”</p><p>Obi-Wan watched Anakin turn the mug underneath the water. The contents slipped into the drain.</p><p>“Point is,” Anakin said, turning off the faucet, “I’m not some moony-eyed student who expects hand-holding and…whatever. So you can get rid of that concern.” He gestured at the space between them. “This? It was just sex.”</p><p>Obi-Wan saw last night play out in front of him again. Opening a car door, hearing the rain come down on the windows. Anakin kissing him first—gently, quietly at first, and then there were the hands—his hands, Obi-Wan’s hands…</p><p>Obi-Wan’s eyes dipped to where Anakin’s bottom lip was still swollen. He knew that if he reached his hand up to his own mouth, he would feel something similar.</p><p>“Just sex,” Obi-Wan repeated.</p><p>“Yeah.” Anakin looked at Obi-Wan fully. “Just that.”</p><p>“Right.” Obi-Wan started to look back down at the sink, but at the last second, he kept himself still. “In that case…” He cleared his throat, took a step back. “If there’s nothing more…”</p><p>“There isn’t.”</p><p>“Very well.” Obi-Wan rested his hands on the counter, pretended that there was something worth his attention there.</p><p>“I’ll just…” Anakin’s voice drifted. “Jacket.”</p><p>“Yes,” Obi-Wan said. He pushed himself away from the counter and walked for the closet. He found Anakin’s jacket easily—that and his backpack, which sent another shot of guilt and shame through him. He tugged the jacket off the hanger, and he turned around to find Anakin much closer than he had anticipated.</p><p>Obi-Wan startled, stepping back into the doorframe. “Don’t—”</p><p>“Sorry,” Anakin said. “Didn’t mean to do that.”</p><p>“You failed miserably,” Obi-Wan muttered, disentangling himself from the rest of the clothes. He stepped out of the closet, held up Anakin’s jacket. “Yours.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Anakin replied. He took the jacket from Obi-Wan’s hand.</p><p>He didn’t put it on.</p><p>With a start, Obi-Wan realized he was relieved.</p><p>“Is this going to make things weirder between us?” Anakin asked. “You going to break out in hives when I come into class?”</p><p>“Don’t flatter yourself,” Obi-Wan replied. He meant to keep his tone light, but the words came out all wrong. Too quietly. He cleared his throat, dropping his gaze down to the crook between Anakin’s neck and shoulder. Actually, no, that was no good. Obi-Wan found the hickey there too easily. “You have…”</p><p>“Hm?” Anakin looked, but of course he couldn’t actually see.</p><p>Obi-Wan tapped his own neck, hoping that would be enough of a hint.</p><p>“Oh.” Anakin reached up, his hand briefly touching the corner of the bruise before dropping back down. “Well, I’ll think of something. By the time I get to class, it’ll be gone.”</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded.</p><p>Anakin nodded back.</p><p>“You should…” Obi-Wan gestured halfheartedly to the door.</p><p>“Yeah.” Anakin took a few steps back. He picked up his backpack, swung it over his shoulders. He still hadn’t put on the jacket, but he walked to the door. Obi-Wan hovered by the closet, waiting for the inevitable open, then the close.</p><p>But Anakin lingered near the door, one hand on the handle and the other still dangling at his side. “I was just thinking,” he said.</p><p>“Dangerous,” Obi-Wan remarked.</p><p>“Careful,” Anakin said, turning around. “You just called me smart.”</p><p>“Suppose I did.”</p><p>“Well, I was just thinking,” Anakin said. “About…the situation. Because there’s kind of a problem.”</p><p>Obi-Wan lifted an eyebrow.</p><p>Anakin dropped his hand from the handle. “So the thing is,” he said, “I just said that it’s not serious or long-term, <em>but</em>…” He dropped his head against the door. “What if we just…kept it like this? Friends with benefits kind of thing, I mean.”</p><p>Obi-Wan stared. “You’re being ridiculous.”</p><p>“Am I?” Anakin asked, lifting his head.</p><p>“Yes,” Obi-Wan replied, mirroring Anakin. “Because you are still enrolled in <em>my </em>class.”</p><p>“We’ve only got a little bit before break starts,” Anakin said. “And…I’ll be out of your class soon.” He shrugged. “Point is, last night was fun. For me. And maybe…” He straightened against the door, shifting the bag over to his other shoulder. “Maybe if it was fun for you, then we could…try this? Maybe?”</p><p>Obi-Wan folded his arms over his chest.</p><p>“This is a bad idea,” he said.</p><p>“Never said that it was a <em>good </em>one.”</p><p>Obi-Wan shook his head. “If you think that…”</p><p>“Listen, I’m just throwing it out there,” Anakin said. “Because I don’t know about you, but <em>I </em>was miserable, and you <em>seemed </em>miserable last night, and we were just conveniently <em>there</em>. And it…worked. For a second. For a night.”</p><p>Obi-Wan shook his head again. “For a <em>night</em>,” he said. “What <em>you’re </em>proposing is—” He stopped at the tugging in Anakin’s lip. “Why do you keep doing that?”</p><p>“Keep doing what?”</p><p>“Laughing at me,” Obi-Wan said. “You’re laughing at me right now.”</p><p>“I’m not laughing at you.”</p><p>“Please,” Obi-Wan muttered, turning away. “You’ve been laughing at me since the first day of class.”</p><p>“That wasn’t me laughing,” Anakin said. “That was just me.”</p><p>Obi-Wan let out a breath. He looked at Anakin again, who wasn’t smiling now. “What you’re proposing,” he started, “is…”</p><p>He tried to come up with the right word, but all that came up was a blank. Looking at Anakin wasn’t helping matters, and even though Anakin at least wasn’t smiling anymore, there was still so <em>much</em>, and Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he could carry it all. He hadn’t been able to carry everything for a long, long time, and the only time he had even felt the slightest relief—</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at Anakin. “You can’t be serious,” he said at last.</p><p>“Pretty sure I am,” Anakin replied. He shifted his backpack again. “But if <em>you’re </em>not, then.” Anakin lifted his shoulders, set his hand on the handle again. “Then that’s up to you.”</p><p>Obi-Wan waited. He wasn’t sure whether to start laughing or just shove Anakin out of the apartment.</p><p>Obi-Wan rubbed his hands over his face. Why did he ever open the car door. No, if he went even further back—why did he ever step into that bar the night he did. Why did he have to meet Anakin then. Why did Anakin have to be in his class.</p><p>“Obi-Wan?”</p><p>Obi-Wan dropped his hands from his face. Anakin was still watching him.</p><p>Ignoring the sinking feeling in his chest, Obi-Wan walked forward. Anakin blinked, but he didn’t move—not even when Obi-Wan tugged open the door.</p><p>When Anakin looked down at him, Obi-Wan said, “You better pass my class.”</p><p>Anakin was smiling again—that little corner of his lips twitching upwards in that knowing half-smirk. “Will do,” he said.</p><p>He left.</p><p>Obi-Wan watched Anakin disappear around the hallway before finally closing the door.</p><p>--</p><p>When Obi-Wan walked into the lecture hall Monday morning, he found Anakin at the back as always. Obi-Wan set his notes down on the lectern, managed a few “hello”s and “good morning”s to some half-awake students.</p><p>“How was your weekend?”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at Cody. “Hm?”</p><p>“Your weekend,” Cody repeated.</p><p>“Ah.” Obi-Wan shuffled the notes on the lectern before remembering he had arranged them a certain way so as to not get confused. He reorganized them. Lifted his head once to the rest of the lecture hall. Anakin was still at the back, but as though sensing the sudden attention, he lifted his head.</p><p>Anakin smiled before dropping his head back to the desk.</p><p>Obi-Wan’s throat went dry.</p><p>“Fine,” he said.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i think there's a meme or something that's kind of like: </p><p>me, reading chapter 10: aww yay they're finally together! <br/>also me, seeing that there's 20 chapters: oh no </p><p>so :) </p><p>comments and kudos are lovely if you can spare them!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Anakin walked back into the apartment, Ahsoka was already waiting for him.</p><p>She wasn’t sitting on the couch for once, and she was already dressed. She was wearing a shirt that Anakin knew wasn’t hers. Her keys were in one hand, phone in the other, leaning against the windowsill.</p><p>Anakin slowed his step, closed the door behind himself. “Hey.”</p><p>“Hey.” Ahsoka pushed herself off the sill, fidgeted with her phone. “So…”</p><p>“So…” Anakin adjusted his backpack over his shoulder. “Were you over at Trace’s?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Ahsoka replied, and she looked briefly relieved for the subject matter. “She—yeah.” She plucked halfheartedly at her shirt, and then, looking back up, she asked, “And were you at…Rex’s?”</p><p>Anakin’s chest tightened. “Yeah,” he decided to say. “Rex.”</p><p>Before Ahsoka could ask any more, Anakin slung his backpack to the floor. “So anyways…I was thinking about what you were saying earlier—”</p><p>“Wait.”</p><p>Anakin looked at Ahsoka. She pushed herself off the wall, walked over to Anakin with the same reluctance and wariness that reminded him a little bit of a parent after getting a call from school. Which suddenly made Anakin panic, because <em>why, </em>out of all examples, would he think about getting a call from <em>school</em>, and he wondered briefly if he smelled strange—if maybe he smelled like where he had just been, but that didn’t make sense, because Ahsoka had never <em>smelled </em>Obi-Wan anyways—</p><p>But then Ahsoka stopped in front of Anakin, her arms still folded over her chest. “Just so you know, I’m still…<em>mad </em>at you.”</p><p>“Noted,” Anakin replied.</p><p>“But…” Ahsoka stopped, looked up at Anakin. She examined him carefully, and Anakin was tempted to stand up straighter. So he did.</p><p>A corner of Ahsoka’s lips twitched, but she didn’t fully smile—Anakin didn’t expect her to. Still, she dropped her arms and sighed. “I just want things to be…like, <em>okay</em>,” she said. “You know? Like, <em>really </em>okay? Between all of us?”</p><p>Anakin paused. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”</p><p>“So can we…” Ahsoka bit down on her lip. “Can we at least <em>try?</em>”</p><p>When Anakin didn’t respond right away, Ahsoka continued, “But if you don’t want to, then…like, I’ll be okay with that. But I…” She let out a short breath, turning her eyes up to the ceiling. “I just miss my friends.”</p><p>Anakin swallowed. He suddenly wished that he was back in a different apartment—and then he felt selfish and stupid and cruel for that, because Ahsoka was still looking up at the ceiling, still so decidedly missing something that she probably shouldn’t have to miss.</p><p>Anakin closed his eyes.</p><p>“Okay,” he heard himself say.</p><p>When he looked down, Ahsoka was wearing a semi-hopeful expression. “Are you…”</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin replied. He picked up his backpack, walked over to his bedroom. Stopped. Turning around, he looked at Ahsoka again. “Listen—I just…” He rubbed the back of his neck. He remembered someone’s hand resting there, warm limbs tangled in his own. “I’m trying to move on too, you know?”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>At the sudden lilt in Ahsoka’s voice, Anakin amended, “Not like—not like that. Just…” He shrugged again. “You’re right about some things.”</p><p>“Like…”</p><p>“Like I don’t want you moping around either,” Anakin said. He adjusted his backpack over his shoulder. “And I don’t really feel like moping around right now, too.” He swung open his door, managed a quick grin at Ahsoka. “Bigger, better things, right?”</p><p>Ahsoka looked at least a little wary again. “Right…” she started to say, but before she could say anything else, Anakin closed the door behind himself.</p><p>He waited for Ahsoka to say something—maybe knock on his door or ask him for details on <em>what he meant anyways, </em>and honestly, Anakin wasn’t even sure what <em>he </em>meant either, just that he didn’t really want to think about…whatever else was going on right now.</p><p>Like the fact of what happened last night.</p><p>Last night was something to think about.</p><p>Anakin dropped his head against the door, closing his eyes again. He let his backpack drop to the floor, and for a while, he could only count his breaths. Wait for them to come in, wait for them to go back out.</p><p>Anakin could actually smell Obi-Wan on him.</p><p>He realized that now, as he shrugged off his jacket. He could catch just the faintest of something woodsy-musty-warm that made him pause.</p><p>Anakin sank into his bed, hauled his jacket over himself.</p><p>A knock on the door sounded.</p><p><em>There it was</em>.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>The door cracked open, and Anakin heard Ahsoka’s quiet footsteps.</p><p>“Move over,” Ahsoka said, and Anakin did.</p><p>Ahsoka crashed into the bed with a heavy sigh.</p><p>“So,” she said.</p><p>“So,” Anakin replied, eyes still closed.</p><p>“Who was it this time?” Anakin felt Ahsoka’s head shift next to him, knew that she was looking at him. “Was it Rex?”</p><p>Anakin kept his eyes closed. “No one you know,” he murmured. He tugged his jacket over his face. He heard Ahsoka sigh again, and then he felt cold feet kick at his shin. “Don’t do that.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Ahsoka said, kicking Anakin again.</p><p>Anakin kicked back, and Ahsoka laughed a little this time—short, but there.</p><p>“I felt really bad after I yelled at you, if it counts for anything,” Ahsoka said once they had settled back into silence. It was a comfortable silence this time, although Anakin wasn’t sure if that was more because of the actual comfort or because he was just sleepy. And oddly sore. But mostly sleepy.</p><p>Anakin just barely opened his eyes now. He looked next to him, to where Ahsoka’s eyes were closed too. She had her hands resting at the back of her head, chin tilted up to the ceiling. “I just figured you should know. That I really was sorry after I left.”</p><p>Anakin paused. “I know,” he said.</p><p>He turned back up to the ceiling, closed his eyes again. “I’m sorry that you felt like you lost both your friends.” He meant his voice to be quiet, but his words seemed to ring around the bedroom. He could hear the words vibrate back to himself—could feel them sink into the space between themselves and settle, settle, settle there.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>Ahsoka’s voice was quiet too—quieter than Anakin’s, probably too quiet for anyone else to hear if anyone else had bothered to care.</p><p>Anakin did, though.</p><p>He looked to Ahsoka, and this time, she was looking at him too.</p><p>“We’ll be okay, right?” she asked. “With everything?”</p><p>Anakin thought for a while. “Sure,” he said. He pushed away his jacket, started to tug at the covers instead. “You gonna just stay there?”</p><p>“What do you think?”</p><p>--</p><p>So that was how Anakin and Ahsoka made up—like they always did. Even back when everything went to hell, at least that much hadn’t changed between the two of them. Anakin still didn’t tell her where he had been that night, and she didn’t ask any more. He was glad that she didn’t.</p><p>Anakin told himself that again as he hiked up to class when the next week rolled around. The cold air bit and nipped at his nose and the back of his neck, but he didn’t mind, not as he climbed the steps two at a time. He walked past other sleepy-eyed students, found himself at the doors of the lecture hall soon enough.</p><p>Anakin slipped inside, found almost immediately that Obi-Wan was already at the lectern. He was wearing a sweater this time around—a deep brown sweater, a blue shirt poking from underneath. Anakin dropped his head to his notebook, found himself reading-but-not-really reading his past notes.</p><p>He looked up again: this time, to some strange, strange satisfaction, that Obi-Wan was looking at him too.</p><p>
  <em>You better pass my class. </em>
</p><p>Anakin smiled and looked back down at his notebook. He could have sworn he heard Obi-Wan clear his throat even from this far away.</p><p>Anakin flipped to another page.</p><p>Class started.</p><p>“As you all know,” Obi-Wan said, “your final papers…”</p><p>Anakin looked down to find Obi-Wan again: Obi-Wan paused, pushed his glasses up his nose. “Your final papers are due a few weeks from now,” he continued, looking briefly at the lectern. “I fully expect you all to have emailed me a proposal by the end of this week, and feel free to come by office hours to brainstorm if you feel the need to…”</p><p>--</p><p>“You’re in a good mood,” Rex commented.</p><p>Anakin looked up from his notebook. “What?”</p><p>“You’re in a good mood,” Rex repeated. He tapped across the desk. “By the way, you’re not thinking of auditioning for <em>The Voice </em>anytime soon, are you?”</p><p>“Very funny,” Anakin said, taking out his earbuds. He stretched his arms over his head and, flashing Rex a grin, said, “Maybe the weather’s just nice.”</p><p>Rex looked out the window. “It’s raining,” he said.</p><p>“Rain’s sometimes nice,” Anakin replied.</p><p>“Uh-huh.” Rex opened his laptop. “Well, I hope that good mood still applies for coursework.” He rubbed a fist into his eyes. “Just…a few more assignments, and we should be good to go, right?”</p><p>“Finals,” Anakin agreed. He looked down at his notebook, at the scribbled outline he had made of what he knew was going to be his final paper.</p><p>“Skywalker?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin said, snapping his notebook shut. “Coursework. On it.”</p><p>“You better not be slipping on me,” Rex said over his laptop. “We’re in the final stretch now.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Anakin replied. He smiled at Rex again, but his friend just gave him another wary glance before returning to his laptop.</p><p>Anakin opened his own laptop, trying to concentrate on the screen. It took him three times to actually type in his password correctly, which was stupid, but again, he couldn’t care to particularly mind. He listened to the rain and to the students and to the distant whir of the coffee machine from the library’s knockoff Starbucks. He looked out the windows once to see some students rushing to classes, their backpacks held over their heads as makeshift umbrellas.</p><p>Anakin was about to return to his laptop when a familiar sweater caught his eye—the sweater, he found. Not the auburn hair or the blue-grey eyes turned down on a phone or the hand holding up a phone—it was the sweater that caught his attention first.</p><p>“Want anything?” Anakin asked, standing up.</p><p>Rex looked. “Where—”</p><p>“Just grabbing coffee,” Anakin replied. “Need one?”</p><p>“Nothing, thanks,” Rex replied, looking back at his laptop. He looked at Anakin again. “You sure you’re good?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Anakin replied. “Why?”</p><p>“You don’t have your wallet.”</p><p>Anakin blinked. “Right,” he said. He dug into his backpack, grabbed his wallet. “Thanks.”</p><p>With that, he strode over to the opposite end of the library, where the line for the knockoff Starbucks ended. Where Obi-Wan still stood, speaking in low tones to his phone. Anakin slowed his walk, wondering if he would be noticed—and just as he wondered that, Obi-Wan looked over at him.</p><p>Anakin kept his expression as blank as possible as he settled into the spot behind Obi-Wan.</p><p>To his credit, Obi-Wan didn’t react either. He kept talking, and now Anakin caught snippets of the conversation—“thank you for the offer, really, but it’ll be fine—”—and Anakin observed the slight crease between Obi-Wan’s brows, the slight tightened grip of the phone shown by his just-barely-whitened knuckles.</p><p>“Yes, yes,” Obi-Wan continued. “I know. I <em>know</em>—but it’s—hello?”</p><p>Obi-Wan hung up with a sigh.</p><p>Anakin waited a full second before asking, “Something wrong?”</p><p>“Not at all,” Obi-Wan replied. He turned around to Anakin, looked at him with a wariness that Anakin was now starting to realize was commonplace for everyone these days, it seemed—first Ahsoka, then Rex, now Obi-Wan. “Can I help you with something, Mr. Skywalker?”</p><p>“<em>Mr. Skywalker</em>,” Anakin repeated. “Now that’s new.”</p><p>“I can assure you, it’s not,” Obi-Wan replied, turning back around.</p><p>Anakin smiled at the back of Obi-Wan’s head. “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing you can help me with—I’m just here for some coffee.”</p><p>“Mm.”</p><p>The line moved up—slowly.</p><p>“I’ve been working on the final paper,” Anakin said. “You know. Just making sure that I pass.”</p><p>“Well, that’s good,” Obi-Wan said.</p><p>Anakin wished that Obi-Wan had turned around at that. “Really?”</p><p>“Of course,” Obi-Wan replied. “I’d want all my students to succeed.”</p><p>The line moved up again, and Anakin looked down to find Obi-Wan tucking his phone back into his pocket. Obi-Wan’s hand stayed in his pocket, only his thumb just brushing against the side of his trousers.</p><p>“How professional of you,” Anakin commented, this time lowering his voice just the slightest.</p><p>“Indeed.” Obi-Wan’s voice was neutral as they walked up.</p><p>Anakin’s eyes dipped to Obi-Wan’s hands again. They fell right beneath the hem of what Anakin spotted was <em>definitely </em>a blue button-up now. He had a strange feeling that it was probably the same button-up that Obi-Wan had been wearing on the very first morning, back when things were less complicated.</p><p>The rain fell steadily against the windows, and the line crept upwards, and Anakin found the faintest of birth marks at the back of Obi-Wan’s neck.</p><p>“So,” Anakin said at last, “any chance I can swing by office hours to talk about the final paper?”</p><p>“You know you always can,” Obi-Wan replied, still not quite turning around.</p><p>“Well, that’s a relief,” Anakin replied. He stepped forward too soon—his foot knocked against Obi-Wan’s ankle, and this time, Obi-Wan paused before walking up again. Anakin kept his hands in his pockets, both feeling and not really feeling the wallet there.</p><p>The line crawled up the reset of the way, and neither of them spoke. Anakin listened to Obi-Wan exchange pleasantries—order a cup of tea, of course, not coffee. Anakin ordered is own drink, waited next to Obi-Wan as the baristas prepared the drinks.</p><p>Anakin glanced over at Obi-Wan again. They at least weren’t standing in the awkward one in front-one in behind formation anymore—they were side by side, close and yet not close enough for Anakin to recognize where he must have left a mark on Obi-Wan’s neck.</p><p>Where Obi-Wan must have left a mark on Anakin’s own.</p><p>Obi-Wan looked at Anakin.</p><p>Anakin blinked, turned back around to the barista who, luckily, had just brought out the drinks.</p><p>Obi-Wan got to the counter first. He passed Anakin his drink wordlessly—gave him a quick nod. “I’ll see you in class, Mr. Skywalker.”</p><p>“Class,” Anakin agreed, and he held onto his cup as Obi-Wan walked away in the opposite direction. Obi-Wan pushed past the doors, and Anakin only dully realized that he didn’t have an umbrella with him.</p><p>Anakin held onto his cup and stood there for a second more before walking back to his desk.</p><p>“Everything okay?” Rex asked again.</p><p>“I have my wallet, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Anakin said, sitting down.</p><p>“No,” Rex said. “Your face is red.”</p><p>Anakin blinked again. He took a quick sip from his coffee and regretted it immediately. “<em>Hot</em>,” he said, standing up. “Gonna get water—”</p><p>He hurried away before Rex could say anything else.</p><p>--</p><p>When Anakin returned to the apartment, he found Ahsoka was sitting not at the couch, but in the kitchen. She was leaning against the counter, arm wound around her side, her other hand holding up a phone. “Yeah,” she said. “Of course. Duh.”</p><p>She looked at Anakin and grinned. “Yeah,” she said. “We could make it work.”</p><p>Anakin raised an eyebrow, but he opened the fridge door, swiped out a soda.</p><p>“Yeah,” Ahsoka repeated. “It’ll work. It’ll be nice.”</p><p>With that, Ahsoka hung up, and she looked at Anakin, beaming.</p><p>“What’s that all about?” Anakin asked, passing the can over to Ahsoka before grabbing another one.</p><p>“So…” Ahsoka cracked open the soda. “Remember what we talked about the other day? About the…making up kind of thing?”</p><p>“…yeah?” Anakin asked neutrally, cracking open his own soda. It sprayed a little—just the tiniest bit enough to fleck his own shirt. He swiped at his shirt, set his can on the counter. His stomach felt strange, and he realized that maybe soda could actually be a better idea than he originally gave it credit for. He reached for the can.</p><p>“Well…Thanksgiving <em>is </em>coming up,” Ahsoka said.</p><p>“I thought you hated Thanksgiving,” Anakin said.</p><p>“I <em>do </em>hate Thanksgiving,” Ahsoka said matter-of-factly. “And Christopher Columbus can rot in hell forever—<em>but</em>...” She beamed at Anakin. “Padmé says she’s free then, and Trace is off for the holiday, and <em>we’re </em>off…” She shrugged. “Just a time for us to like…do a normal friend thing?”</p><p>Anakin flicked at his soda can, took a quick sip. He looked at Ahsoka, who was still so clearly waiting for an answer.</p><p>“So you’re inviting Trace,” Anakin said. “Trace, Padmé…”</p><p>“You can invite Rex,” Ahsoka said. “I’ve been meaning to meet him anyways.”</p><p>The knot in Anakin’s stomach loosened. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”</p><p>“And Padmé might be bringing over a guest too,” Ahsoka continued, relieved. “I mean…plus ones and everything, and I think that’s only fair, seeing that we’re both going to have people over…”</p><p>“Did you even ask Trace?” Anakin asked.</p><p>“She’ll say yes,” Ahsoka replied dismissively. “And you just have to ask Rex—”</p><p>“Right,” Anakin replied. He took another quick swig from the soda can. “I’ll ask.”</p><p>“Great,” Ahsoka said, and she sounded and looked so sincere that Anakin wished he could be a little more sincere too. So he managed a smile for her, picked up his backpack again.</p><p>“I’ll send him a text,” Anakin said. “Looking forward to it.”</p><p>--</p><p>Texting Rex was easy—he got an answer relatively quickly. A short <em>yes</em>, although Rex mentioned that he might have to leave early because <em>brothers and cousins </em>were a big deal—and Anakin agreed to that, because he had a feeling that trying to pry Rex away from his already huge family would probably be a less than stellar idea, even for him.</p><p>Anakin picked up his phone. Dropped his phone.</p><p>When Anakin fell asleep, his tongue was still burning from a too-hot coffee.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>a wild update appears! comments and kudos are lovely if you can spare them!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>so hi! this is my very first obikin fic, and um...i'm excited to get this started! next chapter will be coming monday (08/10)</p><p>comments and kudos and subscriptions are greatly appreciated!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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